{"id":61,"date":"2026-03-29T23:39:28","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T06:39:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/juliermst202\/?p=61"},"modified":"2026-03-29T23:48:38","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T06:48:38","slug":"ferrante-a-brilliant-friendship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/juliermst202\/2026\/03\/29\/ferrante-a-brilliant-friendship\/","title":{"rendered":"Ferrante \u2013 a brilliant friendship"},"content":{"rendered":"

I think this is my favourite book of my contract. I mean, considering there\u2019s only one book left, I\u2019m fairly confident in saying that this is my favourite \uff08\u00b4\u2207\uff40”\uff09After so many books where perhaps the sentences were a bit complicated, or where the scenes jumped around in time, it was great to read a book that is both more recent and straightforward. That\u2019s not to say the writing wasn\u2019t beautiful, though; I really liked the way Ferrante wrote the voice of Elena!<\/span><\/p>\n

I absolutely love the friendship Elena and Lila have! It\u2019s such a complicated mixture of caring for each other and being jealous of one another, while always thinking the other one is better in an admiring way. Elena started as the one always behind Lila, always chasing her, pretending to be just as brave as her, and trying so hard in school to achieve what Lila seems to have already obtained. This causes her to be competitive, and then the situation suddenly flips. Now, the more academically talented Lila stays behind while Elena continues school. But Lila doesn\u2019t simply accept, and (at least for a while) tries her hardest to stay ahead in secret. The betrayal(?) that Elena feels when she realises Lila had been studying over the summer (and also when she realises Lila may have tried to take away her chance to go to school) feels so real and so complex (\u2565\ufe4f\u2565) Lila says many things that jab at Elena as well, showing her bitterness at not having that same schooling opportunity, yet they continue their friendship, with Elena seeing Lila as still better than her in so many facets.<\/span><\/p>\n

(huge tangent: Elena always being behind Lila at the start reminded me a bit of what Armin said in Attack on Titan season 4 (I made the text the same colour as the background so you can choose to avoid spoilers ( \u0d26\u0d4d\u0d26\u0d3f \u02d9\u15dc\u02d9 ) highlight it to see!): when talking with Zeke in the Paths, he said something like \u201cmaybe I was born to chase Eren and Mikasa up that hill\u201d (\u2565\u2038\u2565) now I want to watch the whole show again<\/span>)<\/span><\/p>\n

As such, I feel like Elena is slightly unreliable in her recounting, as she really puts Lila up on a pedestal, while often not realising that Lila seems to admire her equally? Like, I know the title of \u201cmy brilliant friend\u201d is said from Lila to Elena, but it feels a lot more like they see each other as their brilliant friend.<\/span><\/p>\n

It also made me sad that Lila lost her opportunity to continue school because of her family, mainly her father\u2019s views \u1559( \u15d2\u15e3\u15d5 )\u1557 I know it\u2019s historically accurate, which only makes me wonder how many women in real life never got to pursue what they showed great potential in. Although I imagine this question has been asked many times before, it is still the one on the top of my head: how do you think their friendship would change if they succeeded in continuing school together?<\/span><\/p>\n

I am absolutely buying this entire series in the summer, and maybe I\u2019ll watch the show too! I\u2019m super excited to hear everyone\u2019s thoughts (>\u15dc<)<\/span><\/p>\n

See you on Wednesday!<\/span><\/p>\n

Julie \u1555( \u141b )\u1557<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I think this is my favourite book of my contract. I mean, considering there\u2019s only one book left, I\u2019m fairly confident in saying that this is my favourite \uff08\u00b4\u2207\uff40”\uff09After so many books where perhaps the sentences were a bit complicated, or where the scenes jumped around in time, it was great to read a book […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107663,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[37,35,36],"class_list":["post-61","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ferrante","tag-admiration","tag-friendship","tag-jealousy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/juliermst202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/juliermst202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/juliermst202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/juliermst202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107663"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/juliermst202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/juliermst202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/juliermst202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61\/revisions\/63"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/juliermst202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/juliermst202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/juliermst202\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}