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kell_xavi's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
Picking up from the very scene that dramatically closes My Brilliant Friend, this novel charts marriages, businesses, schooling, holidays, love affairs, a good deal of domestic violence, betrayals, sexual beginnings, lies, kindnesses, pregnancies, and changes with Elena (Lenu), Lila, and the neighbourhood in Naples at the centre of an ever-expanding world. Where the first book follows the two girls from ages 7-16, The Story of a New Name tells the story of a similar time span, ages 16-24.
Lila is hot-headed, distant, abrupt, creative, listless, passionate, quickly moving between big emotions and a sense of dissociation, with a growing anxiety about the framework of her life and the expansiveness of the world around her. She has a difficulty with uncertainty, trying to hold on or shape things until she understands them, at which point she can accept any new development. She is brave around the men who appear to lose body and fall to pieces before her, she is sensitive to pregnancy and to certain locations, she is resolute and sometimes, exhausted, she is easily moved.
Harder to capture is Lenu, our narrator. There are times when she explains the events of her life aside from Lila’s, at different jobs, with boyfriends, at school and new cities, and once she writes that these experiences are seen again, anew, when she imagines her friend in the same scenes and places. Lenu’s convictions, stubbornness, keen observation, careful responsiveness, are all elements of her character that strengthen as she moves from the familiarity of her poor streets to the intelligence and cultivation of high school, of Nino and his friends, as she grows into the educated, modern, refined classes of Italy. These traits are also ones that allowed her to be friends with Lila, to follow her as children, to take risks, to work hard for herself, to develop the creativity and toughness that underlie her trajectory to adulthood.
Lila and Lenu are both spirited, smart, and independent. They face so much anguish and pain, but they’re both so often alone with their minds, unable to tell each other the truth.
Yes, yes, let me be punished for my insufficiency. Let the worst happen, something so devastating that it will prevent me from facing tonight, tomorrow, the hours and days to come, reminding me with always more crushing evidence of my unsuitable constitution.
Ferrante both cares for these characters and allows them volition, volatility, forays into melodrama and a dignified, or nervous, or demanding womanhood on the other side of experimental choices and their torments.
I considered her happy, with that tempestuous happiness of novels, films, and comic strips. The only kind that, at that time, truly interested me. That is to say, no conjugal happiness, but the happiness of passion, a furious confusion of evil and good that had befallen her, and not me.
They’re often seen with distance, hostility, or misplaced desire by others, fighting to inhabit similar spaces until they find separate niches and fight to prove their own the greater success and assuredness.
In the past, there had been Lila, a continuous happy detour into surprising lands. Now, everything I was, I wanted to get from myself. I was almost nineteen. I would never again depend on someone, and I would never again miss someone.
I wasn’t immediately lost within this book, in part because of the immediate ironing out of the shocking kink in the fabric of Lila’s marriage that we conclude the previous book with. Much of the beginning is stage-setting, with a few remarkable moments of friendship and Lila’s artistic endeavour to destroy or disappear herself. The domesticity and high school stories were less captivating than I hoped for, and it didn’t pick up intensity again until the final days of a summer on Ischia. The breakage, often, is an occasion for brightness in Ferrante’s stories.
Ferrante writes with a depth and realism that washes over everything, making sharp and kinetic the gossip of women; making smooth and dry the blunt scene of a sexual encounter; making warm and heady a follow-through to freedom. There is so much emotion, so much anger and love and shame and fear in these pages.
She was explaining to me that… in the world, there is nothing to win, that her life was as full of varied and foolish adventures as much as mine, and that time simply slipped away without any meaning, and it was good just to see each other every so often, to hear the mad sound of the brain of one echo in the mad sound in the brain of the other.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Domestic abuse and Infidelity
Moderate: Mental illness, Miscarriage, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Suicide, Pregnancy, and War
Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Cursing, and Death of parent
fascismktkeps's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Domestic abuse, Infidelity, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, and Classism
Moderate: Ableism, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Panic attacks/disorders, and Suicidal thoughts
Minor: Death
culown's review against another edition
dark
reflective
sad
medium-paced
3.5
È davvero difficile dare un giudizio coerente a questo romanzo.
Come nel primo dell'amica geniale la scrittura è fenomenale e coinvolgente, però non posso dire di aver apprezzato il libro. Devastante e deprimente non vedevo l'ora di finirlo ://
Controllare assolutamente i content warnings.
Lo stupro iniziale imposta il tono di tutto il libro, veramente triste
Come nel primo dell'amica geniale la scrittura è fenomenale e coinvolgente, però non posso dire di aver apprezzato il libro. Devastante e deprimente non vedevo l'ora di finirlo ://
Controllare assolutamente i content warnings.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Infertility, Infidelity, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, and Sexual harassment
soli's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Domestic abuse
Minor: Mental illness and Toxic relationship
boy_topics's review against another edition
dark
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
This book became tedious to me after a while. I was tired of the same storyline repeating itself over and over again. Lila and Elena are stuck in a cycle that repeats and again and again. I got bored and sad. The ending is a HUGE cliffhanger and truthfully I can't believe that this story continues for another two books. At the same time, I do love Ferrante's writing and I'm quite attached to the characters at this point. I need to know what happens but I'll be taking a break before moving onto the third book.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Infertility, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, and Pregnancy