Adam's Breed by Radclyffe Hall — Read

Gian-Luca left school the following Christmas, having made neither enemies nor friends. He was missed a little by both teachers and students; by the former because of a quick intelligence that had made him an interesting pupil, by the latter because there was now no "Macaroni" to be teased and left out of things.

For a few weeks he experienced the novel sensation of having nothing to do. Just at first this was rather a pleasant sensation; he could lounge in and out of the shop as he pleased, or better still, stroll down the street to Nerone's and hang about bothering Rosa in her kitchen until she drove him away. But after a time this enforced idleness began to pall on Gian-Luca, and then it was that he formed a new habit -- he formed the habit of books. Hitherto all books had meant lesson-books, he had read scarcely anything else, and lesson-books had been part of a rule imposed not by himself but by others. Now, however, it was different, he himself was the rule, he could read or not read what he chose; and this fact gave Gian-Luca a pleasant sense of power, so that even the volumes which he had brought from school became suddenly much more interesting.