astrarchea 's review for:

The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante

3.75

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I read it as intently as I read the first one, but didn't find it as entrancing as the previous is. The whole section on Ischia was tortuous to read, on the whole, but mostly beacause of Nino. I have read harsh critiques of Lenù as a character, I think beacuse she speaks intimately to many girls who read her thoughts and see themselves reflected on her worst, most vulnerable angles. In the first one it was interesting to see herself delineated against Lila, who I gravitate towards more, and so her inner workings were interesting to discover and relate to oneself. In this one her inner dialogue is almost masochist, and became dense to read quickly. Still, it remains an interesting dissection of a convoluted person, of a mind and of preoccupations we all can relate to in some way, even if not a girl, not from Naples, not a novelist, so it is still worth the read.