Pretty awesomely layered. Demands a second reading for sure. ( )

exquisite. ( )

This is one of those books you're not going to fully understand unless you've lived it. The Days of Abandonment reminded me of reading Djuna Barnes' Nightwood. I was lovingly given the book by my high school English teacher as a graduation present. I read it, didn't understand it, and promptly disliked it. Cue a heartbreak later and suddenly Barnes' words were the only balm that could understand it.

The Days of Abandonment is the same. Ferrante writes with a passion I audibly and physically felt. My book is underlined to near death. She is the author of the angry woman. I have never had a piece of media that mirrored so much my own descent into madness after my "abandonment". There is something so mundane and horrifying about the constant reoccurring memories, the drinking and self-mutilation, the dissociation and depersonalization from your brain breaking under the stress of it all. And Ferrante writes about it. She does it without flinching, without caring how ugly it is.

When I first read it, I was angry. I was angry with Olga, wanted to scream and yell and kill like her, to destroy everything like we had been destroyed inside. Now, every time I open the book to look at passages I cry. I cry at how I once was, I cry for the loss of innocence I suffered, the innumerable scars I have inside that render me angry, bitter, scared, and selfish. I just keep repeating to myself "You're not a knickknack, no woman is a knickknack. La femme rompue, ah, rompue, the destroyed woman, destroyed, shit."

I'm also very happy I read it at the time of my life I'm at now. It took me a long time, but it felt so good when I wanted to shake Olga to tell her that her ex was an asshole. Maybe I'm not totally over it (and don't want to be), because I wish there was more of a discussion of her ex-husband's /faults rather than her resignation. Well, I guess seeing his new relationship doomed to fail is all the glee we get, but I wanted some more evil Olga :')

( )

Could not like the main character. Could empathise but only rarely. ( )

This read as a brutal novel for much of the book, the fierce sadness and occasional violence shouts out from the pages and reading it was exhausting. The final section is calmer and an easier read. A roller coaster of a novel that I can only imagine was tough to write and translate. In the first line the narrator's husband announces he is leaving. Set in Turin, it quickly felt clear to me that Mario is a coward who has another relationship lined up and he disappears to make a nest with his new partner for a while leaving a wife, two young children and a dog. Not a comfortable read but with less than 200 pages I would recommend it. ( )