I’m very glad I read The Story of a New Name, the second book in the writer’s Neapolitan tetralogy. I wasn’t that much into the first book in the series but that was because I’ve read too many Bildungsromane and am now allergic to the genre. Besides, these novels are supposed to be read as one big work of literature and not 4 separate books. So I take it all back, the books are great, they deserve to be read immediately.
People, seriously, you all need to go read these books right now because they are the literary sensation of the decade. Ferrante is constantly compared to Jane Austen but these writers couldn’t be more different. Ferrante’s protagonists, Elena and Lila, are trying to escape the degradation, the poverty, the intellectual stupor, the beatings, the sexual violence of their miserable neighborhood in Naples. These are – FINALLY!!! – female protagonists who are complex, profound human beings and not whining princesses in search for a substitute Daddy who will adopt them and protect them from existing.
I can’t remember when was the last time I found an interesting female protagonist, and here you have two! And they are different! Go read the novels! This is real world, real people, real situations, and not some sci-fi fantasy fairy-tale about superpowers and magic kingdoms.
Clarissa's Blog 
I’m about to finish the fourth book in the series, and I can’t recall having read any work of a literature this finely-tuned from beginning to end in years.
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Ah, finally a fellow fan!
When I finish the series, I will seek out the writer’s other novels. I don’t know much about contemporary Italian literature but she is sensational.
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I was also fairly underwhelmed by the first in the series, but if you take the four as a whole it becomes a lot more impressive. The translator, Ann Goldstein, has done an amazing job with the works as well.
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Now I will check them out. 🙂 Is it OK to read first the second part before the first?
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I think you’ll love the first book in the series. Don’t you enjoy Bildungsromane?
It’s best to read them in order.
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\ I think you’ll love the first book in the series. Don’t you enjoy Bildungsromane?
Yes. I will order it from the library.
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You will thank me for sure. 🙂
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