Welcome to Litsy!

How Lenu feels is exactly how I feel reading this book. Ferrante‘s feat may be in creating a character who continually makes the worst choices and decisions a woman can make in managing her life and relationships.

I‘m over here saying: “Oh No! Don‘t do it! You really went ahead did that?” 😳

My favorite books capture aspects of human nature and relationships that we all understand and have experienced but have struggled to put into words. (Proust has done it the best for me). I am definitely enjoying this last book in the series so far. I expect things can go downhill though.

Well, I‘ve got to read the last book after reading the first three. I hope Ferrante redeems herself.

This is the 3rd book in the Neapolitan Quartet, about the toxic relationship between Lila and Elena. I found it to be almost unbearable to read, having to engage with such flawed characters. I steadily grew in my dislike of them due to the regressions in their identities and morality. By the end, I was as so emotional that I cried. Positively this may show the author‘s ability to stir feelings if that was her point.

I‘ve spent my summer this year in Naples. ❤️ I bailed on My Brilliant Friend when it first came out, it wasn‘t the right time. I am so glad I gave it another chance. I‘ve not been this absorbed in a book series for years. I devoured it book after book and now I‘m walking around in a daze. Absolutely brilliant.

4⭐️ Really enjoyed this book and I am kinda glad I read it after all the hype had died down to read it. Looking forward to the next book in the series. #2025 #fiction #historicalfiction #literary #friendship #comingofage

I have to finish this third book in the series and move on to the final one. But, if this was the first and last of dealing with them, I would be done.

There's a read along of this happening on Substack, for women in translation month, so decided to give it another shot. The first time I tried it, I only got a few pages in and have been a little dismissive of "Ferrante Fever" ever since. But, timing is everything, and this go-around I devoured and loved it. Really looking forward to the rest of the quartet.

This is the third book in a four-part series so I have to finish to learn what happens but I am getting so bored with Lila, one of the friends in this complicated relationship. There is page after page about her. If it was not a series, I would not finish this particular book. Just saying.

Every intense relationship between human beings is full of traps, and if you want it to endure you have to learn to avoid them. I did so then, and finally it seemed that I had only come up against yet another proof of how splendid and shadowy our friendship was, how long and complicated Lila‘s suffering had been, how it still endured and would endure forever.