The Lying Life of Adults by Elena Ferrante

Bookseller Review by Fleur:

Gosh. So many remembrances of my teenage self came flooding back – how awful it really was!  And at the same time so brilliant – but maybe it was that very brilliance, the sharpness of it that is so exhausting to think of, imagining the trauma of having to do it all again!

This is my first Ferrante novel, why I thought it would be as good a place as any to dive in.  All my bookshop colleagues are such ardent fans of her Neapolitan Quartet, but I’d never quite managed to start – something soon to be remedied!

So I am looking at The Lying Life of Adults entirely as an entity of its own, and I can’t quite praise it enough.

The characters are drawn with such care and fullness, gifts and flaws to make me worry about going to Naples and meeting them in real life – my blushes at knowing all their secrets!

But as a once teenage girl, and the mother of two teenage girls, my take away feeling is one of how incredibly hard the transition from girl to woman is.  How kind and patient I must be to myself as I carry on moving from young, to mille to old age – making decisions and judgements, good and bad.  Living with them all, carrying on, seeking out vibrancy and brilliance, navigating and embracing the sharp edges.  Being receptive and being brave.

Naples – magnificent!