This week’s last and final reading of choice is My Brilliant Friend by Ferrante. This is also the first physical copy of a book I have in this class, and what I have to say is that it’s easier to indulge into a book when you have the actual copy in your hands. With that said, here is my last and final book review for the course.

Impressions:

Now, my first impression of this book was wow, this is long. Although the book was long, it takes on a very different perspective than previous books we have read because we get to have a deep dive into the character’s life journey and development. This made me feel more attached to the characters, especially with Lila, who from the beginning since childhood had me thinking that she was a literal girlboss (a more generation z terminology to describe a girl or woman who is independent and successful). Not only was she academically gifted and on top when it came to every subject, but also what really made me like her as a character was when she pushed Marisa for calling another girl a whore (p. 40).

The jealousy that the main character, Lenu, had in the beginning during childhood seemed to make me like Lila more than the main character herself. Firstly, she thinks of her as being prettier than Lila, like is she not your friend? Also, she was jealous of Lila being better in academics than her and beating people like Alfonso, the son of Dan Achilles. Understandably, this was occurring mostly during childhood and the beginning of the adolescence chapters, so how she felt is probably a part of how the nature of growing up was. I also find that what brought Lila and Lenu together was not their interest in academics, but also because they both grew up in a household with violence.

In the book, I disliked how many side characters there were, as there were so many names of children who don’t seem to have played a significant role in either Lenu or Lila’s life. It made it a tad bit hard to follow with the plethora of characters I thought I had to keep up with. In addition, what I really disliked was how the author didn’t give Lila more time in the book, and only really gave her the moment to shine in the beginning of the book. Yes, she’s not necessarily the protagonist, but also the author made her more likable or attachable to me than Lenu. I felt like I had so much anger for how Lila’s character was just boiled down once she left school, which was unusual of her character, to join her father as a shoemaker. I feel like we don’t learn much about Lila after she gets married to Stefano, and I think that Lila was portrayed as more of the main character than Lenu in the beginning, so it felt like a bummer.

Question:

Why do you think she left her academics behind to pursue shoemaking? Do you think this was to satisfy her father?