{"id":30,"date":"2026-03-29T23:24:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T06:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/asmasblog\/?p=30"},"modified":"2026-03-29T23:24:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T06:24:09","slug":"my-brilliant-friend-elena-ferrante","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/asmasblog\/2026\/03\/29\/my-brilliant-friend-elena-ferrante\/","title":{"rendered":"My Brilliant Friend- Elena Ferrante"},"content":{"rendered":"

I feel like My Brilliant Friend<\/em> is one of those books that I didn\u2019t fully get into right away, yet the more I read, the more it grew on me. At the beginning, I was honestly kind of confused with all the characters and the neighborhood dynamics. It took me a bit to figure out who everyone was and how they were connected. Once I got into it though, I started to really like how immersive it felt, like I was actually growing up with Elena and Lila.<\/p>\n

What I liked the most was their friendship. It felt super real and not romanticized really. There\u2019s this constant mix of admiration and jealousy, especially from Elena\u2019s side. She\u2019s always comparing herself to Lila, who just seems naturally smarter and more confident. I feel like that dynamic is actually really relatable, because friendships can sometimes feel competitive even when you care about the other person. Lila was probably the most interesting character to me.<\/p>\n

I also really liked how the book handled education. Seeing Elena continue school while Lila had to stop was honestly frustrating, especially because you can tell how smart Lila is. It made me think a lot about how much opportunity matters, not just talent. Those parts stuck with me the most.<\/p>\n

At the same time, it\u2019s not the fastest or easiest read. Some parts felt slow, and I definitely had to push through at times. I feel like that\u2019s kind of the point though, because the story focuses more on everyday life and small moments rather than big dramatic events. In the end, it really stuck with me because of how honest and a bit uncomfortable it felt at times, which made everything seem more real.<\/p>\n

Discussion question: Do you think Elena would still be the same person without Lila in her life, or is so much of who she is shaped by that relationship?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I feel like My Brilliant Friend is one of those books that I didn\u2019t fully get into right away, yet the more I read, the more it grew on me. At the beginning, I was honestly kind of confused with all the characters and the neighborhood dynamics. It took me a bit to figure out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107038,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/asmasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/asmasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/asmasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/asmasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107038"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/asmasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/asmasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/asmasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30\/revisions\/31"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/asmasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/asmasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/asmasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}