★A novel for young people grappling with their sexual and emotional development who want to fight against all forms of discrimination.

★The novel portrays with rare candour the general indifference of the classmates who witness the bullying of Nicola, the extraordinary inability of both teachers and parents to communicate and intervene, and above all the victim's feeling of loneliness.

★"Pink is just a colour" is not only a novel of denunciation, but also a very strong cry of hope for all the boys who feel invisible, misunderstood, and different, while also managing to touch the sensitivity of adults - parents or teachers - who want to read a cross-section of the everyday life of so many of today's boys and find a way to deal with them on such widespread issues as bullying and homophobia.

Nicola is sixteen years old and likes to wear trousers that his mother mistakenly discoloured during a wash and have now taken on a pink hue. Michele and the other bullies in the class have not missed an opportunity to taunt him for years. Their prevarications have become more and more violent and there is not a day when Nicola is not forced to suffer some new wicked prank. But the worst thing is the almost total indifference - if not connivance - with which the other classmates witness the constant humiliation that Nicola now accepts as inevitable.

Not that the situation is any better at home: his mother has suggested he should stay away from his classmates, while his father thinks he should stop being weak and show him up. His sister Scarlett, on the other hand, doesn't even seem to notice his existence, engrossed as she is by the endless chats on her phone that keep her relentlessly busy. Nicola, meanwhile, in doubt, does nothing. Luckily there is Agata, his best friend, the only person with whom he feels safe and understood. And then there is Mattia, the Greek tutor boy. Nicola has a crush on him and, in order to keep seeing him, he pretends to still be a loser with the versions.

Despite Agata's urging him to react to abuse, Nicola seems unable to help but seek the approval of Michele and his group. In order to feel accepted, he finds himself doing anything for them.

When his mother realises something is wrong, she arranges an appointment with the parish priest, sure that he can help him in some way. Nicola tries to open up, but when he confesses to the priest that he is gay, he is told that it is not true, that he is too young to know and that praying to God will help him stay on the straight and narrow path. But the straight path, for Nicola, looks more and more like Mattia. He kissed him, and from that moment on, he feels like he is living a dream. At least until, no one knows how, Michele and the others get to him. They attack Mattia and beat him so badly that he is left in a coma.

It is the straw that breaks the camel's back, Nicola sees no escape. He goes onto the terrace and climbs onto the balustrade, ready to jump. But he will not jump because it is not over yet, in fact it has not even begun. He has a whole life ahead of him and, above all, he wants to shout to the world that he is not invisible and that he has every right to be as he is.

It is the protagonist Nicola who recounts the hours at school, punctuated by the constant bullying of his classmates, the feeling of impotence that pervades him at home, the few moments of happiness in the company of Agata, and his love for Mattia. The first-person narration is interspersed with excerpts from an essay written by Nicola that traces the life of Marielle Franco, a woman, black, lesbian, activist, and city councillor in Rio de Janeiro, who was killed on 14 March 2018 with four gunshots to the head. Marielle represents a role model for Nicola, a person who was not afraid to show herself as she was and fought for the rights of the LGBTQI+ community until the end.