[1] The controversy surrounding the book, as well as the young age of its author, contributed to make it a huge bestseller in Italy and the novel was translated in many languages and published across the rest of Europe, in Brazil and Korea.
With this publisher she released Detesto il soft (1997), a dreamy novel centred on morbid sexuality, and Finestre accese (2000), her last novel so far, where the lives of the two main female characters are followed down the years through the entries in their personal journals and where Cardella addresses for the first time the theme of mafia.
Through the years Cardella has experimented various styles and narrative solutions, from the traditional novel (Volevo i pantaloni, Una ragazza normale) to the contamination between novel and drama (Intorno a Laura), from the dreamlike atmospheres of Detesto il soft to the journal (Finestre accese).
There are however some basic themes recurring in much of her work, as the main focus of the plot or lying under the surface, such as chauvinism, rape, the backward and negative aspects of Sicilian traditional society.
In Una ragazza normale and Detesto il soft the subjects of sexuality and death are addressed in a fascinating morbid way.