My Brilliant Friend

Growing up in a small rural community where education wasn't much valued amongst the working class population, I related to the main character in this book. She defies expectations and pursues an elite education (like I did) and then struggles the rest of her life stuck between the world she was born into and the world she now inhabits as an educated person.

This is a story about two friends who take wildly different paths in life. Both have brilliant minds. But one chooses to pursue an education while the other chooses marriage and work in the neighborhood of Naples… show more.

Although I have read a number of novels focused on friendship, this one stands out with particular vigor. It started the way I expected: two friends since childhood. The more I advanced into the reading, though, the more I perceived the two main characters—Elena and Lila—as the same person:  a sort of super-protagonist that incorporates not only the psychological traits of the two but their lives as well.

If it’s true that life is often a fight between who we are and who we would like to be, then this novel portrays that conflict masterfully. What I saw in this… show more.

This book is the first in a series of books that celebrate the lifelong friendship of Elena and Lila, who meet as young girls in a rough and tumble neighborhood in 1950s Naples, Italy. I applaud the author's skill in weaving a setting that was beautiful despite what many would consider ugly. 

I loved this whole series mostly because it celebrates the power and ever-evolving dynamic of female friendship through the many different stages of the character's lives and the events that they must overcome.  

A powerful story about how adolescent friendship can shape lives. Ferrante explores female intimacy through the characters Lenu and Lila, who experience intense academic and romantic rivalry. A study about competition and the complex nature of female friendship. Such a great read.

Like Zenia, Lila, the crafty protagonist of this book, is a born charmer. With her wicked intelligence and unique beauty, she turns heads and stirs controversy wherever she goes, attracting admirers and haters.

She is unafraid of fighting men’s violence with violence–she carries a shoemaker’s knife to deter the unwanted advances of suitors–and she is not hesitant to describe herself as mean.

Elena, Lila’s best friend and the novel’s narrator, comes in second after Lila in many things in life, including academic excellence and boys’ attention, and often suffers caught between love and jealousy toward Lila. 

Set in Naples, Italy, this culturally rich book is the first in a series of four connected novels that tell the complete story of a profound and intense friendship between two women who are opposites in almost every way.

It is a friendship-love story that illustrates how a deep and abiding love can help and hurt two people. My Italian ancestors are from Naples, and Elena Ferrante’s books capture the spirit of their passions while delivering complex and emotional life lessons.

I love this book because it expresses the romanticized ideal of childhood in a relatable and honest way. The characters are sweet, loving, and genuine, and their engagement with life is the same. This book is a reflection of innocence, an admission of our eventual digression from such innocence, and a true story of friendship.

I also love the book because it doesn’t rely heavily on the plot to drive it but more on the relationships between the characters. Set against the beautiful backdrop of Naples, My Brilliant Friend is one of my favorite coming-of-age stories. 

What I love about this book–strange as it may sound–is how perfectly the darker emotions are captured; shame, envy, disgust, and boredom are so vibrantly described as to become almost beautiful.

Growing up in a corner of Naples run by the mafia, protagonist Raffaella Cerullo is brilliant and fearless. This book is the first in a four-book series that I read the summer of its release, and it made me want to pack up and go to Naples.

I am convinced nobody writes about female friendships in an aching, warm, and complex way better than Elena Ferrante. I have returned to pages of this book again and again.

The relatability, the precision with which you can see yourself so clearly on certain pages. It has helped me find language in navigating my own friendships.

My Brilliant Friend is the first novel in a series of four entitled the Neapolitan Quartet. Set in a poor neighbourhood of Naples, it is a marvelous evocation of the childhood and teenage years of two Italian girls, Elena and Lila, their friends and enemies, and their families.

Having myself had a stab at describing young female friendships, I couldn’t put it down. I shall certainly look out for the second in the series, The Story of a New Name.