Reviews with content warning for Pedophilia - De geniale vriendin

I cant decide on my rating. The beginning was difficult to get in to and various characters confused me. I had to stop trying to remember who was related to who and what each persons job was. The end has me reeling. I am unsettled. I will need to read the next book in the quartet.

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adies's review against another edition

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challenging inspiring reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

i should've made notes on who's who

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chiaragiselle's review against another edition

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emotional reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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carojust's review against another edition

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challenging hopeful reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

We're introduced to childhood friends Elena and Lila, growing up near Naples. Their relationship illustrates so much of what we endure in adolescence -- a competitiveness, inferiority, envy, awkwardness, a desperation to feel understood. And with all these feelings, Elena looks upon Lila with such purity of love and admiration. She is shaped by her friend's ideals and interests, and has a hard time finding her own identity beyond Lila's. Together, they try to navigate their difficult families, poverty, and the affections of boys.

This book drew me in slowly. Ferrante has incredibly dense prose, yet succinct. She describes her own character's writing this way, and its charm is inescapable. It takes so long to read, but you feel at home with the characters and cadence.

I wouldn't say this is a book where much happens, though it covers many years in their lives; there are repetitive themes and relationships that emphasize the rural, everyday life these characters trudge through. I think there's still a lot of subtle meanings I haven't picked up on, and need to sit with. But what I'm left with is a feeling of admiration for these two girls, who set their own standards high amidst a time and environment set against them.

Will continue reading the rest of the quartet and see how this goes!

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jamiebrew's review against another edition

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challenging emotional inspiring sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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kellylover86's review against another edition

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adventurous funny mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Lots of short chapters which helps move the book along. The book tells the story of two smart, quick friends, girls becoming women in 50s and 60s Italy. Deals some with themes of misogyny, lack of opportunities for women at that time, violent masculinity. It was hard to keep the characters straight. The cast of characters is pretty large and many have similar names.

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lydiavsbooks's review against another edition

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emotional reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No

3.5

Because of its slow pace and throwing you straight in with a big cast of characters, it took me a while to really get into this one. Around the halfway mark though, it had me.

A slow gentle story of two friends growing up together in 1950s Naples. A raw yet soft tale of adolescence in the context of the poverty, violence and misogyny of its setting. I started off unsure of whether this would be for me, but ended up really enjoying it and now invested in the story of these two women and where they'll go next.

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miller8d's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

This book is brilliant in a way that makes me say “This is the story of a real life,” not “omg I love this book.” Like, I don’t really feel like I read a fictional story. (I actually have no clue if it’s autobiographical or not but I won’t google it because I don’t want to spoil it). Perhaps for that reason, this book took me an incredible long time to read. Like, months on end of picking it up and loving it, but being unable to pick it up again because it was so difficult to read. I don’t even think it was actually difficult literature for me, but instead so emotionally dense and detail-heavy that I couldn’t pay anything but 100% attention while reading, otherwise I’d have to go back dozens of pages to figure out why I was confused. Also,

this is perhaps the only book or story I’ve ever known which accurately depicts how tumultuous and confusing and painful it can be to survive childhood and grow up. I absolutely loved her depiction of how the child’s mind can equally spin fantasy and horrific terror on the same coin— not simple boogieman stuff, but much scarier, finding awful and disturbing fears in/around the mundane figures of your social world and daily life, even when there’s nothing truly wrong there.

Beautiful book.

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