The Story of the Lost Child

The Story of the Lost Child

Elena Ferrante

Enjoyment: Quality: Characters: Plot:
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Here is the dazzling saga of two women, the brilliant, bookish Elena and the fiery uncontainable Lila. In this book, both are adults; life’s great discoveries have been made, its vagaries and losses have been suffered. Through it all, the women’s friendship, examined in its every detail over the course of four books, remains the gravitational center of their lives. Both women once fought to escape the neighborhood in which they grew up—a prison of conformity, violence, and inviolable taboos. Elena married, moved to Florence, started a family, and published several well-received books. But now, she has returned to Naples to be with the man she has always loved. Lila, on the other hand, never succeeded in freeing herself from Naples. She has become a successful entrepreneur, but her success draws her into closer proximity with the nepotism, chauvinism, and criminal violence that infect her neighborhood. Yet somehow this proximity to a world she has always rejected only brings her role as unacknowledged leader of that world into relief. For Lila is unstoppable, unmanageable, unforgettable!


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  • Enjoyment: Quality: Characters: Plot:

    I didn't like the last book as much as the 3 before it. The second half felt like it was zigzagging between Lila's erratic behavior (like WHEN will lenu feel secure and good about her friendship with Lila??) , and suddenly there were 4 kids that we had to pay attention to and care about, even though Lenu didn't really care about them. But then what does Lenu care about in this last book? I'm not sure! There wasn't a clear thing that I could get behind. Maybe that was the point. I got the feeling from this last novel that there are installments in your life when you won't be happy. And they could last years.

    Anyway, read it still!

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