Friday #56, #21 My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante ~ BookishRealm

The Friday #56 is a weekly meme hosted by Freda's Voice. Join in every Friday and share an excerpt from a book you've been reading. Here are the rules:

Grab a book
Turn to page 56 or 56% in your e-reader
Find any sentence (or a few, don't spoil it)

**Be sure to post the links to your Friday #56 below!

Happy Reading!

Hey guys! I'm definitely excited to share my Friday #56 this week. We have a book club at my job and each month we read something different and then meet to discuss the book. This week's post is focused on one of the translated works I will be reading this year. It's from the book My Brilliant Friend. It's a slow read, but definitely full of some many interesting aspects. I would highly recommend this book if you are interested in books that solely focus on character development. This one solely looks at how to characters not only grow individually, but also together. I like it so much I already have the next book on hold at the library.

"And at that very moment I heard him, Don Achille: he slithered, he shuffled among the indistinct shape of things. Then I abandoned Tia to her fate, and ran away, in order not to lose Lila, who was already twisting nimbly between the panels of the broken door."

A modern masterpiece from one of Italy’s most acclaimed authors, My Brilliant Friend is a rich, intense, and generous-hearted story about two friends, Elena and Lila. Ferrante’s inimitable style lends itself perfectly to a meticulous portrait of these two women that is also the story of a nation and a touching meditation on the nature of friendship.

The story begins in the 1950s, in a poor but vibrant neighborhood on the outskirts of Naples. Growing up on these tough streets the two girls learn to rely on each other ahead of anyone or anything else. As they grow, as their paths repeatedly diverge and converge, Elena and Lila remain best friends whose respective destinies are reflected and refracted in the other. They are likewise the embodiments of a nation undergoing momentous change. Through the lives of these two women, Ferrante tells the story of a neighborhood, a city, and a country as it is transformed in ways that, in turn, also transform the relationship between her protagonists, the unforgettable Elena and Lila.

Ferrante is the author of three previous works of critically acclaimed fiction: The Days of Abandonment, Troubling Love, and The Lost Daughter. With this novel, the first in a trilogy, she proves herself to be one of Italy’s great storytellers. She has given her readers a masterfully plotted page-turner, abundant and generous in its narrative details and characterizations, that is also a stylish work of literary fiction destined to delight her many fans and win new readers to her fiction.