Title: My Brilliant Friend

Author: Elena Ferrante with Ann Goldstein (Translator)

Genre: Literary Fiction

Rating: ★★★★☆

Why I read it: NYT Best 100 Books of the 21st Century List

My Brilliant Friend begins in the 1950s in a poor but vibrant neighborhood on the outskirts of Naples. It follows fiery and unforgettable Lila and the bookish narrator, Elena, from their fateful meeting as ten-year-olds through their school years and adolescence. The pages weave a tale of complex female friendship and the tests that come with feeling like your life’s path has been chosen for you. This is the first in a four-part series that spans over sixty years.

As I sit down to write this review, numerous thoughts populate in my mind, namely, 1) I wish I had paid more attention in English class, and 2) how thankful I am to have challenged myself to read this novel. 

The novel (I feel calling it a “book” doesn’t do it justice) opens with a character index that at first glance seems helpful. I studied that character index, only to find myself continuously confused by the characters throughout the entirety of the novel. I’m embarrassed to say that up until even the final few pages, I was getting character names confused and how they aligned with the hierarchy of the neighborhood. I recommend learning from my mistakes and referencing these pages more often.

It also starts incredibly slow. While the second half of the novel picks up in speed, in the beginning, I found myself getting discouraged, and at times I couldn’t progress more than a handful of pages at a time. The beginning details the foundation of the friendship between Elena and Lila, which is incredibly important and complex, however, I found myself lost at times as I navigated their history. I was also having a hard time reconciling that Elena is ten years old at the start of the story, yet the writing style of the author is so arduous and expansive that I was in a constant battle in my mind between what I was reading and the reality that Elena and Lila were experiencing. This problem (if one could even consider it a problem) alleviates itself as the story develops and as Elena details her educational journey. 

I struggled with the amount of violence in the novel. Not the detail of the violence, as nothing shared is particularly jarring, but with the amount of violence. It broke my heart at times to see the constant struggle of Lila and Elena to be surrounded by and at times engulfed themselves in so much violence in their neighborhood. I wanted better for them. 

I greatly enjoyed Lila’s feistiness and Elena’s intellect and related deeply to the ups and downs of their friendship. Elena often flexed between speaking highly of Lila by issuing her great praise and cutting her down with insults depending on their friendship status. At times it seemed that Lila could do no wrong, and at others, Lila was not getting anything right in Elena’s eyes. Often laced with jealousy and comparison, I liked how the author explored the challenges of a blossoming female friendship and I saw a lot of myself in Elena’s behavioral choices. 

It took about two-thirds of the novel to start to get lost in the story and to become truly invested in the fate of the characters, as finally, things started to connect. It was around this point that we started to see Elena and Lila exploring different lives and how that deviation was impacting their friendship.

The repeated mentions of Jackie Kennedy, the importance and glorification of money, and the numerous explorations of what it means to be “successful” brought forward a lot of internal and external conflicts that I enjoyed throughout the story. I found it especially moving when at the end of the novel, Elena comes to a key realization that we (the readers) had been shouting from the rooftops since the beginning of her tale. 

Another item worth mentioning, Elena paints the picture of her mother to be a decrepit old woman, when at the end of the novel it is revealed that her mother is only thirty-five! But hey, I remember thinking that adults were much older than they were when I was a child, so this seems realistic, although shocking for a reader who is not far off from that age herself.

The prose is thick, with complex sentence structures that when reading evoke the same feeling as trying to wade through waist-deep water. At times I felt inadequate and unqualified to be reading this work. I am so glad that I pushed through because I got to the end and finally it evoked an emotion I was searching for the entire time: suspense. As a result, I have concluded that I will be pursuing the rest of the novels in this series as I need to know what happens to Lila and Elena as they enter into this next chapter of their lives. 

Four stars because I had a hard time getting into the story at the beginning, but the ending more than made up for it and I am beyond impressed with this author’s voice and style of writing.

Lastly, I want to thank @sweetbasilbooks on Instagram for the engaging dialogue while I was struggling to finish this read. I greatly appreciate our discussion on the intricacies of translation and thank you for indulging me with the knowledge that the author writes under a pen name – a fact that brought even more intrigue and drama to this story.

TL;DR: Would I recommend it to a friend? It depends. If said friend enjoys complex literary works that make you think, then absolutely. But this is not for someone who is just looking for a quick read. For those ready and willing to challenge themselves and expand their minds, I recommend this in a heartbeat.