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A review by livgwilliam
The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante
5.0
The Story of a New Name (Neapolitan series #2) by Elena Ferrante (5/5)
Alright alright I now understand why people love Elena Ferrante and this series. For people who didn’t love My Brilliant Friend enough to keep going, do it. Keep going.
The books need to be read in succession as together they really are just one big novel. My rating of My Brilliant Friend was colored by the abruptness of its ending. It has been a while since I’ve read a series and I kind of forgot cliff hangers are part of the deal w them. This one also ends on a cliff hanger, and I can’t wait for the next.
Ferrante captures complicated female relationships in a way that simply no one else does. I reflect on my own various close female friendships over my life during familiar moments and dynamics between the two girls captured in this book. Whereas My Brilliant Friend recounts Lila and Elena in their grade school years, the Story of a New Name covers their teenage ones which is I think ultimately why I liked it more. This book builds so effortlessly from the first book, showing us how key small moments from their childhood were formative in shaping the trajectories of their lives.
Ferrante shows the power of education and its cultural clash with class. This book is about Elena and Lila’s divergence because of the choices they make and those made for them, as student and as wife respectively. Lila finds freedom first in money and then in love, but her autonomy does not last. For Elena, education is her freedom, widening her world and taking her out of their small town in Naples. The girls are jealous of each others freedoms, taking for granted their own at points while constantly battling to keep the ones they have.
This book is about class, gender, family, friendship, love, all the things. It was so good.
Alright alright I now understand why people love Elena Ferrante and this series. For people who didn’t love My Brilliant Friend enough to keep going, do it. Keep going.
The books need to be read in succession as together they really are just one big novel. My rating of My Brilliant Friend was colored by the abruptness of its ending. It has been a while since I’ve read a series and I kind of forgot cliff hangers are part of the deal w them. This one also ends on a cliff hanger, and I can’t wait for the next.
Ferrante captures complicated female relationships in a way that simply no one else does. I reflect on my own various close female friendships over my life during familiar moments and dynamics between the two girls captured in this book. Whereas My Brilliant Friend recounts Lila and Elena in their grade school years, the Story of a New Name covers their teenage ones which is I think ultimately why I liked it more. This book builds so effortlessly from the first book, showing us how key small moments from their childhood were formative in shaping the trajectories of their lives.
Ferrante shows the power of education and its cultural clash with class. This book is about Elena and Lila’s divergence because of the choices they make and those made for them, as student and as wife respectively. Lila finds freedom first in money and then in love, but her autonomy does not last. For Elena, education is her freedom, widening her world and taking her out of their small town in Naples. The girls are jealous of each others freedoms, taking for granted their own at points while constantly battling to keep the ones they have.
This book is about class, gender, family, friendship, love, all the things. It was so good.