Lenù suffers so much because Lila doesn’t share enough with her, but she herself keeps her vulnerability close to her heart. Ferrante writes about the violence of men responsibly and accurately, and that current of violence is always underneath the storyline, waiting to rear its ugly head either as a strike or as trauma.Īnother thing I was also very aware of, this time around, is that Lenù’s perspective of Lila might be extremely distorted (or, in the least, framed by how much Lila will reveal to her). Still, Lenù’s struggle with her sexuality after she is sexually assaulted by the Donato Sarratore feels incredibly real: survivors often confuse sexual desires and disgust for what was done to them, and these feelings can be even more confusing if, as a young woman, you don’t really understand what was done to you. In rereading this book, I can see how Lenù is naive and innocent, and Lila might seem aggressive and overtly violent, but it’s so obvious that Lila knows more about the world than Lenù.

Lenù’s insecurities are at first about whether she can be loved by a man because she does not find herself attractive, while Lila, sharp and generally ahead of Lenù, is immediately aware of how women can get hurt by men in the neighborhood and beyond.

Firstly, this book still strikes me as such an amazing description of coming into womanhood-the fluctuations in confidence to do with beauty and smarts, the realizations of what a womanly body means to men, the insufferable competition between girls we are taught to perform.

My brilliant friend series books