Bingo Review: My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante

I read this as my “Modern Translated Fiction” entry for my bingo reading challenge this year, because I’ve heard so many good things about it. 

The book is the first in a series called “The Neapolitan Novels” and it details the childhood and early adolescent of a young girl in 1950s Naples, Italy. I have the feeling that this book is supposed to be autobiographical, but I can’t say if that is true or not. It is told in the first person, so that certainly lends the story the feeling of autobiography. 

The story starts with two young girls, the narrator Elena and Lila, becoming friends. We follow their life in a poor neighborhood in the city and their struggles to follow their dreams. The girls both have ambitions to do well in school and bring their families out of poverty one way or another. While Elena manages to fight her way through school, Lila has to leave school to help her family make money. We then follow the girls as they grow into teenagers and as they try to make their dreams and the harsh reality of their circumstances come together. 

There is a rather large cast of side characters and I mostly enjoyed reading about them and how they were doing, even though there were a couple I would always confuse for a couple of seconds every time we heard about them. I thought the book was well written but as for plot there wasn’t a lot, and I do need a plot to keep me interested. I enjoyed the writing style and the characterization, and I might check out some other books by Ferrante, but I don’t think I will be continuing this series. 

I gave this book 2,5 stars out of 5 on Goodreads.