I really liked the complexity of Elena and Lila’s friendship. While I cannot speak to the accuracy of Ferrante’s portrayal of an impoverished Southern Italian neighbourhood of the time period it does make for a mesmerizing backdrop. Written in autobiographical style – who knows, maybe it is autobiographical given the little information known about the very private author – this first book in a four-part series focuses on Elena and Lila’s early friendship while growing up in a working class community of postfascist Naples of the 1950s to 1960s. “Captivating.” - The New Yorker Read more “Spectacular.” -Maureen Corrigan, NPR’s Fresh Air “An intoxicatingly furious portrait of enmeshed friends.” - Entertainment Weekly Through the lives of these two women, Ferrante tells the story of a neighborhood, a city, and a country as it is transformed in ways that, in turn, also transform the relationship between two women. This first novel in the series follows Lila and Elena from their fateful meeting as ten-year-olds through their school years and adolescence. Now an HBO series: the first volume in the New York Times–bestselling “enduring masterpiece” about a lifelong friendship between two women from Naples ( The Atlantic).īeginning in the 1950s in a poor but vibrant neighborhood on the outskirts of Naples, Elena Ferrante’s four-volume story spans almost sixty years, as its main characters, the fiery and unforgettable Lila and the bookish narrator, Elena, become women, wives, mothers, and leaders, all the while maintaining a complex and at times conflicted friendship.

My brilliant friend book 3