Elena Ferrante | Fiction

As I contemplated writing this blog, I kept picturing a graph with ups and downs from a center line ... most like an ECG or EKG.  Ferrante’s writing is hard to describe, but to me, she moves her story forward, developing one of her characters in Naples in the late 1950’s, then diving deeply into that character and his or her relationships or traits, then surfacing again back to the story line.  I found her writing quite intriguing in its breadth and depth.  I liked the depth she explored, and that I could breathe in-between periods of intensity.

This is the first book of a four-book series, in which she introduces us to the early days of the relationship between two lifelong friends, Lila and Lenù.  The entire book spans just about two years in their early teens, when morals and norms and expectations and families were very different from today.

As much as I enjoyed this novel, I choose to give it three hearts because the subject matter may not appeal to everyone.  Personally, I intend to read the second book in the series, and soon!