Welcome to Litsy!

My favorite books capture aspects of human nature and relationships that we all understand and have experienced but have struggled to put into words. (Proust has done it the best for me). I am definitely enjoying this last book in the series so far. I expect things can go downhill though.

Well, I‘ve got to read the last book after reading the first three. I hope Ferrante redeems herself.

I‘ve spent my summer this year in Naples. â�¤ï¸� I bailed on My Brilliant Friend when it first came out, it wasn‘t the right time. I am so glad I gave it another chance. I‘ve not been this absorbed in a book series for years. I devoured it book after book and now I‘m walking around in a daze. Absolutely brilliant.

Every intense relationship between human beings is full of traps, and if you want it to endure you have to learn to avoid them. I did so then, and finally it seemed that I had only come up against yet another proof of how splendid and shadowy our friendship was, how long and complicated Lila‘s suffering had been, how it still endured and would endure forever.

This is a suitably tumultuous, eventful, and often brutal and heartbreaking conclusion to the quartet. The unresolved mysteries are in a way frustrating, but they also make the story more real and relatable. It's quite the journey.

Christmas shopping done. Time for #BooksAndBooze. Earned it.

Monday afternoon #BooksAndBooze. Cannot beat it.

Next up

19-22 Sep 24 (audiobook)
I have loved revisiting this series. It is such an interesting depiction of female relationships: friendship but also many mother/daughter and teacher/student relationships.
On first read I thought Tina was kidnapped by the Solaras but less certain on a re-read. I also liked Elena less - there were times when her self-indulgence and her jealousy infuriated me.
Looking forward to watching the series after school holidays.

I haven't been able to settle into a read for a while. The top stack is on pause. The fat book is Wilhelm Meister.

So I picked up a more standard, modern story (tagged) and a short story collection (Where the Wild Ladies Are).

TSotLC is fine, plodding, but I will finish it.

The final book in The Neapolitan Quartet - I loved all four - the complicated and enduring relationship between the 2 main female characters - the descriptions of Naples across the decades - the writing style …. Just great !

A layered, beautiful story of a lifelong friendship. An appropriate conclusion to a lifelong friendship that we follow through 4 books. In this we follow them into old age, between 1970s to the early 2000s. Filled with love, loss and strife. Ferrante has a compelling ability to infuse innumerable emotions into her writing, to bring out the beautiful but more importantly, the devastating and ugly parts of being alive. A brilliant series.

Well, it‘s taken me 7 years but I‘ve finally finished this series! I had to check my Goodreads to find out exactly when I finished the first book in this quartet. It‘s taken me so long because I didn‘t want it to end. I‘ve eked it out until now. Knowing that this series has been waiting for me has been a pleasure. It‘s been something to look forward to. It did not disappoint. Simply beautiful and moving. What an ending!

Sitting down to read The Story Of The Lost Child felt like sitting down to goodbye drinks with an old friend the night before they leave town. That ending... ooft! It was better than I could have ever imagined. Standing ovation. Even after thousands of pages, Ferrante still surprised me and delighted me and made my heart twist in my chest. Full review: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/the-story-of-the-lost-child-elena-ferrante/

I‘ve also finished the Neapel saga by #ElenaFerrante this week! Phew. This series also took me a while. What helped is that the series got better and better, with the last one being a triumphant and emotional finale. After reading 5 of her books, I am now officially a Ferrante fan.

Rating: ��������,5 /5

The disparity between how this went for me the first time I read it versus the second, emotionally….

Again I have to give part of it up to the fact that I‘m heavily engaged in the show, which makes it all resonate deeper, but never in a way where one takes away from the other.

That‘s not the only reason though.

It‘s a phenomenal accomplishment, this series. I definitely will read another Ferrante novel at some point.

With Ferrante book four coming to a close, I‘m heavily enjoying it, but also very much looking forward to other books I‘ve wanted to get to, which have been on my mind. Any time you read a series, it‘s a huge time investment, and the appeal of a standalone really starts to shine.

“I‘m lying, yes, but why do you force me to give you a linear explanation: linear explanations are almost always lies.â€�

â­�ï¸�â­�ï¸�â­�ï¸�â­�ï¸�â­�ï¸� what an ending to an amazing saga!!! I‘m so sad it‘s over

The last of the series that can‘t end - there is so much more yet to feel. Elena Ferrante, whoever she may be, does an amazing job of highlighting the push and pull of friendship in complex characters that I expect to walk right up to my door.

So frustrating to have so many loose ends not tied up. Lila is a brat right until the end.

What a wonderful series of books, all four are amazing .. such a moving saga ... I‘ve just finished the fourth and final book ... I will absolutely re read all four at some point ... they‘re so intricate .. the story for a childhood friendship that runs through the veins of the two main characters and the books ... wow.. I‘m so pleased I‘ve read them but so sorry to have finished them ....

Finally starting the last book of this series!!

New book reads and starts today .... finished Marble Cake it was a bit weird .... and can‘t wait to start The story of the lost child .... had a few days off work and got more reading in yay 📚📚😊😊

I finally finished this excellent series. It did not disappoint this last book. Elena and Lila are both such great characters. There was always something going in their lives. It was good in the beginning of the book their are lists of all the people in the story. It helped in case you forgot just how the characters are connected to each other. #books

A sick day is just what I need to get a head start on #24b4monday 📚

Taking a sick day 🤧

1. Love it
2. Stay in
3. Flowers
4. Diana and Matthew from A Discovery of Witches

@howjessreads @4thhouseontheleft
#friyayinto

Ok, so I am in Berlin for a long weekend. So of course I searched out an English bookstore and of course I bought some books. My excuse they were cheaper now than in Switzerland! #books

Finished the Neapolitan series and, my, what a journey it's been. I loved these books. Ferrante is a master storyteller and the characters she created in this series will not soon be forgotten.

I liked that this final book had many references to the first book. I am heartbroken for Lila and can't stop wondering what happened to "the lost child." Like the characters in the story, we readers will never know.

Life goes on. We do the best we can.

I'd forgotten how readable this series was when i picked up the last book which sees lena and lila move towards their later years amidst deteriorating relationships, children, aging parents, career changes and most of all changes in their friendship. This has been a wonderful series and i was so sorry to finish but oh lila, lila, lila....

#readingenvysummerchallenge @ReadingEnvy I'm off this week and next and we are heading to lyme regis Saturday so as im the only one in the house on a Thursday afternoon i thought id combine something blue on cd player with something translated as i start again on the challenge ( i am loving being back in lena and lilas world for last time) with a Belgian beer my daughter bought back from interrail 12 months ago! Bliss ðŸ˜�

Elena has left worthy but dull husband Pietro for Lila's old squeeze Nino, son of the man who took her virginity all those years ago and continuing to make a name for herself as a writer. Historically speaking we're in the period of the Red Brigades, the five-party coalition governments and the 1980 Naples earthquake, of which we get a brilliantly evocative description. Triumphant conclusion to one of the greatest novel sequences ever written.

The last instalment of the Neapolitan novels takes Lila and Lenu through the tumultuous periods of divorce, parenting teenagers and finding space for a thriving and renewing work life. Add to this their complex web of friendships and family, underworld doings, vanished children, lies, betrayal and murder. After four thick novels you‘d think everything would be answered but that would be far too near for Lila and Lenu.

It feels an achievement to have finished the Neopolitan Novels. The friendship of Elena and Lila, against the backdrop of the raw brutalities of life in Naples over decades, makes for a story like none I‘ve ever read. Such a frank and truthful depiction of motherhood as well as the complexities of female relationships. No one in these books is always likeable or consistently sympathetic. The lives portrayed are as intense as the story is to read.

Finally ready to finish this series.

😭

I'm still not quite sure how this series became such a huge success, BUT I did enjoy listening to it. The first book took me some time to get through since I actually read it, but the others I more or less flew through. But just imagine this story from Lila's perspective!