It's hard to talk about this book without spoilers, so I shall hide it for those who don't want to know yet.Įlena, who is our narrator, has been in love with Nino Sarratore since they were children. Which brings me to why this novel broke my heart. The two friends were often competitive, especially about school, but in book two, they are also competitive about men. Their neighborhood in Naples is still rough and violent in the 1960s, but Lila's marriage to the wealthy grocer Stefano allows her to climb out of the poverty. This is the second book of Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan series, and it follows Elena and Lila from their teenage years and into their early 20s. It broke my heart so badly that I had to stop reading it for a few days to recover. In these Neapolitan Novels, Elena Ferrante, the acclaimed author of The Days of Abandonment, gives readers a poignant and universal story about friendship and belonging. Yet the two young women share a complex and evolving bond that is central to their emotional lives and is a source of strength in the face of life's challenges. Marriage appears to have imprisoned Lila, and the pressure to excel is at times too much for Elena. Love, jealousy, family, freedom, commitment, and above all friendship: these are signs under which both women live out this phase in their stories. In The Story of a New Name, Lila has recently married and made her entrée into the family business Elena, meanwhile, continues her studies and her exploration of the world beyond the neighborhood that she so often finds stifling. Yet in doing so she has created a world in which readers will recognize themselves and has drawn a marvelously nuanced portrait of friendship.

She writes vividly about a specific neighborhood of Naples from the late-1950s through to the current day and about two remarkable young women who are very much the products of that place and time.

a beautiful and delicate tale of confluence and reversal,' Ferrante proves herself to be one of Italy's most accomplished storytellers. With these books, which the New Yorker's James Wood described as 'large, captivating, amiably peopled. The Story of a New Name is the second book in this series. In 2012, Elena Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend introduced readers to the unforgettable Elena and Lila, whose lifelong friendship provides the backbone for the Neapolitan Novels.

My brilliant friend book series