Well written and read but an unsatisfactory plot.

The reader was excellent but I was disappointed that she had an American rather than an Italian accent. Ferrante is a brilliant writer and this was a first class translation. Each sparse phrase worded perfectly to conjure up an emotion, an atmosphere or a description. The protagonist who told the story in the first person, was brilliantly portrayed by the reader as a rather bitter, devious middle aged woman, both elegant and ageing, confident but with poor self esteem. However, I did not enjoy the story which I felt was a rather pointless vehicle for exploring motherhood and women's issues which did not work for me.

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4 people found this helpful

I’m so glad this is only 4 hours long

I find the flat slow American narrator really dull. I’ve had to return other novels because of a similar thing. I’m going to stick with this one though because it is so short. I think I’ll up the speed a little bit - might make it a little more lively!

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1 person found this helpful

Strange behaviour

I was interested about this book because I saw the trailer of the film.
However, both the film and the book are half baked.
On one hand there is a good point of female tiredness of handling career and children at the same time, fury that the male counterpart enjoys being separate, fulfilled in his career, freedom, appreciation from society when a female partner is confined to a space of kitchen/ children/ unpaid and u unappreciated job of raising two children.
On another hand - the story with all concerning the beach - is very strange.
And again - for a woman who is highly intelligent, self aware, selfish, reflective - this strange acts of taking the doll, liaising with obviously unpleasant people, giving her apartment for sex etc are kind of out of character, too chaotic, with no obvious motive to them.

So it started well, but progressed into something disappointing.

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Haunting and beautiful

Loved this - my favourite Elena Ferrante so far. The writing is exquisite and the performance understated and sublime

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4 people found this helpful

Not a great story.

Struggled to read it. kept waiting for a story to emerge. Disappointing. Well written though. Superbly read by narrator.

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1 person found this helpful

Absolutely awful.

Please don't waste hours of your life listening to this. I saw it's being made into a film with Olivia Colman and Paul Mescal so thought great, it must be a really good story.
I struggled to get through it. The narrator is robotic, the 'story' doesn't go anywhere, you can't feel any empathy for any of the characters, it's just so incredibly boring.
Didn't want to give any stars, but won't let me do that, so one star it is.

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7 people found this helpful