About the book
Set in a poor neighborhood on the edge of Naples in the 1950s, Elena Ferrante's novel opens the four-volume series known as the Neapolitan Novels. It follows two girls, the bookish narrator Elena and the fiery, rebellious Lila, from their first meeting at the age of ten through their school years and adolescence. Few children in the neighborhood are educated past elementary school, and a teacher pushes Elena to keep studying, while Lila, a self-taught reader and writer, turns out to be a prodigy. Their friendship is loving but at times conflictual, set against violence, poverty and a city that is changing around them. The novel first appeared in Italian and was translated into English by Ann Goldstein.
Nicole Baldinu, co-founder of The $100 MBA, said she did not want it to end and enjoyed it a second time through the Italian audio version. Flora Pringle of Cracked Candy praised how Ferrante writes about a woman escaping a poor, restrictive background by way of reading and learning.
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This book has 2 recommendations
Flora Pringle (Owner/Cracked Candy)
I think Elena Ferrante writes brilliantly about the challenges of motherhood and building something for yourself. In the Neapolitan Novels she talks about her character breaking out of her poor, restrictive, mafia background through reading and learning. She breaks her boundaries and becomes an accomplished writer. In the third book particularly, Elena speaks fluently about the envy we feel of the accomplishments of others, the insecure we feel even in the traits that others so admire about us. The frustrations of motherhood and how it can impinge professional accomplishments whether we want it to or not. A powerful book.
Nicole Baldinu (Co-Founder/The $100 MBA)
I didn’t want this book to end. And I’ve gone back and listened to the audio version in Italian too. I’m lucky that my second language is Italian, as I got to enjoy it twice over! This book was wildly successful and for good reasons, it has everything you’d want in a story, love, friendship, history, humor, sadness and tragedy. All in four delicious volumes that, again, you wish would keep going and going.
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