Elena Ferrante

I picked this book up at BEA10 at the Europa booth. If you've read [b:The Elegance of the Hedgehog|2967752|The Elegance of the Hedgehog|Muriel Barbery|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347755370l/2967752._SY75_.jpg|1531887], I'm sure you noticed the beautiful, velvety, sumptuous cover. Well, all the Europa books have the same type of cover (with different artwork, of course) and I was immediately drawn in by their eye-appeal. [b:Lost Daughter|1058564|The Lost Daughter|Elena Ferrante|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1412529680l/1058564._SY75_.jpg|55591046] caught my eye, and although you aren't supposed to judge a book by its cover, well... obviously I did. And I am SO glad I did!

This is a very short book; I might call it a novella. The main character is Leda, a divorced mother of two grown daughters. When the book opens, she is off to spend the summer at the sea with the hopes of getting away from life, so to speak, and studying and writing (she is a university professor). On her first day in the small Italian village where she rents an apartment, she encounters a large, boisterous, and we eventually learn, dangerous family who frequents the same stretch of beach that she visits every day. What follows is an odd, disturbing, and somewhat complicated summer that will change Leda forever.

It isn't very often that I read a book, and love it thoroughly, and yet still feel unresolved as to whether I even like the main character. Leda suffers from what I would call maternal ambivalence, and frequently behaves in ways that I found unsettling, perplexing, and even disturbing. Her actions are unpredictable, from the bizarre situation she gets herself into at the beach, to her complicated past as the mother of younger daughters. It's a brutally honest and intimate look into a troubled and unstable mind.

As soon as I finished, I went online, anxious to see how the reviews compared to my own feelings about the story. It's interesting that almost all the reviews I read were in fact quite similar to mine; loved it, hated it, was disturbed by it, couldn't put it down... all at the same time. I only wish I had read this as part of a book club, as I think it would be fabulous for discussion! I will be recommending it at work, to be certain. If you've read it, I'd love to hear your reaction! And if you're local, and you'd like to borrow my copy, I'd be willing to loan it.… (more)

I jumped on the Elena Ferrante bandwagon after being tipped off by a friend, seeing all 3 of the novels in this series on the local bestseller list, and then seeing that the books were available as instant audio downloads from my library.

The book's prologue immediately intrigued me -- I thought I was in for some sort of mystery. As the book started to go on I vacillated between interest, boredom, and confusion (so many sub-characters made the audio version confusing, I understand there's a character chart in the printed book to help keep track of who's who).
I considered abandoning the book about 25% of the way in, especially once I realized that this book really is only the first 1/3 of the story. To get the full story one needs to be in for the long haul. I'm still not sure how I feel about that.

I will say that I loved the beauty of the language. The writing had such lyricism and was profoundly well done. I wish I spoke Italian. I would love to see the original text as something is almost always lost in translation.

The story line is also interesting. Two poor, but highly intelligent, girls growing up in Naples. They read, they study, they learn the rules of their violent neighborhood. This is not YA literature by any means, but I found myself wanting to share parts of this with my daughter (I didn't -- she's too young), but the two protagonists work so hard at their studies, aren't afraid to show the boys how smart they are, want a serious boyfriend who can discuss literature, ideas and the world, etc.

Plot summaries abound, so I won't get into more of that here except to say that the prologue begins when the women are grown and have adult children of their own, and this book ends when they are 16. The question is whether or not to invest the time in reading or listening to the two lengthy books to get from here to there.

Back and forth between 3.5 and 4 stars.… (more)