kynacrumley 's review for:

The Lost Daughter by Elena Ferrante

5.0

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Holy good god. This was like crushing a bug with a book, you just can’t tear your eyes away from the destruction. You have to hate her, but can you morally condemn a woman in search of happiness? And there’s no way Elena Ferrante is really a man. It's impossible one could so precisely put on paper the crushing weight of womanhood or the complexity of Leda’s relationships as a mother and daughter, the scars left on the soul by our relationships with other women. More than anything, I wonder what has this author been through? Her observations cut too deep, Leda is much too flawed, vulnerable, a fully fleshed out, I can almost feel her, human human. She’s packed this with heavy symbolism and so cruelly makes you feel the narrator’s raw shame and self-hatred. I truly believed my heart might make it out of my chest this time, I felt her anxiety, the hurt in both generational directions, the tornado destruction of her spiral. I love reading women in translation <3 Although some of the cultural and connotative meaning may be lost on me, we see the same starry sky on a clear night, i just call it the big dipper.