A review by frogwithlittlehammer
The Story of the Lost Child by Elena Ferrante

dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

Okay so like she’s iconic for finishing her bildungsroman with a mf bang. I am harrowed and hollowed and blown away and I feel like I’ve died. I find the reviews for her being like “an angry woman writer” or “mad Jane Austen” really funny and definitely written by men. Maybe I say this whenever I review anything but there are times when books leave me with feelings that are difficult to put into words and this is another one of those times. Ferrante’s expression of feminine relation is so ugly and true. Like, I see reviews where people complain about the men in the series but they’re literally fleas and mosquitoes compared to the genuine terror that Lenu and Lila evoke, and to see how that was passed down from their mothers and to their daughters. The transgression of the relationships imprinted from youth, carrying out into older age is both beautiful and terrifying, and I wouldn’t even say it’s masterfully written but it’s so good in it’s own right. 

And apparently some people feel cheapened to find out that Ferrante in fact didn’t grow up in Naples but in Rome, but hello that’s a point of a pen name and also the job as a writer. no need to glorify authenticity, imo.