Woah, I have been on a mammoth reading marathon since I found out yesterday that this library book has been pre ordered and must be returned today. I read all evening and most of the night and finished this off. To say this series is addictive is an understatement but I m not sure it's everyone's cup of tea. Part of this book was really slow but I loved it...like life in all its glory and all its dullness. This is the second in the series and again the only thing I really disliked was the ridiculous cover.
Lila and Lenu's story from the ages of 16 to 23 held up against their claustrophobic life on the rough streets of 1960s Naples. I loved the descriptions of their friendship and their loves and their hatreds and jealousies. Plus the slow disintegration of Lila's marriage was brilliantly told This book could be seen as extremely depressing and in parts it is. No one is an angel. But weirdly I also found it uplifting and comforting because Farrente writes so honestly and I really believed every single scene in this book.
Neapolitans living in poverty, scraping a life out, building up businesses, worshipping money, men getting jealous and beating their 'women' into shape, getting involved with the money lenders and the Camorra, memory versus reality, idyllic holidays on Ischia, people trying to escape the grinding poverty through both legitimate and illegitimate actions, snobbery and inverse snobbery, love and lust, the power of control, the idea of what intelligence actually is, and the feeling of deep insecurities are just some of the human conditions covered in this book!
Yes, I devoured this book and I have to start reading the next one straight away. The strange thing is I know this book isn't perfect. Not all characters are well developed and there are lots of characters! plus parts are really quite dull but weirdly for me this worked too. It's just like life, lots of dull stuff and then suddenly things spark and lots of exciting and mad stuff suddenly takes over. Great read.
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