A review by emmaisnotavampire
Storia del nuovo cognome by Elena Ferrante

emotional reflective medium-paced

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

4.5

Here I am, finally writing my review of the rest of the saga, and reiterating the very same premise that I’ll try to be concise, because if I were to say how this book series completely changed my way of viewing and interpreting my life this piece of text would get so long and demanding that I would forever dread writing the final two.

Once again, Elena Ferrante and her characters somehow managed to capture my soul and put it on paper, leaving me with the epiphanic feeling of having read what I wasn’t yet aware of thinking.

The second novel, anticipating the direction that the following ones will progressively take, narrates the story of Lila’s early romantic experiences mostly to contrast the events of Elena’s life, still treating her as a character but simultaneously foreshadowing her personal story’s main function: a mirror for Elena’s sense of inadequacy. Through her eyes and words, I saw my own past finally rationalised and clear, when before it had always confused me and made me feel alienated from other girls my age; despite unconsciously, she obviously views sexuality and romance as more of a social parameter than a pleasurable experience, a confirmation of her value, of her worth, without which everything else she has ever done to deserve praise. This in a way disturbed, morbid, yet almost discomfortingly real perception of it - the main thing making me sure that whoever is behind the Ferrante’s pseudonym must have lived the female experience on their own skin, as something like that cannot simply be imagined - is so strong that she always finds herself, or rather puts herself, in awful situations in her desperate search for validation, for the most part male. I’d be lying if I said I do not understand it all too well. Even in her academic career, the second biggest focus of this book at least in the way I interpret it, Elena is always looking to please others, to please men, in order to feel able to be proud of her own self, because of the way women are socialised in a male dominated world, nowadays just like back then.

It might be because I am also a young woman who’s entering early adulthood, because of our shared passion for learning and culture, because of our similar attempts at emancipation from our family and hometown through our education, or maybe just because her character reflects a more universal feminine experience, but Elena Greco, this book’s especially, feels way too much like a portrayal - and explanation - of my own self not to make me absolutely adore this book.