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  • My Brilliant Friend

  • The Neapolitan Novels, Book 1
  • By: Elena Ferrante
  • Narrated by: Hillary Huber
  • Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
  • 4.2 out of 5 stars (1,529 ratings)
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My Brilliant Friend

By: Elena Ferrante
Narrated by: Hillary Huber
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Summary

Now an HBO series: the first volume in the New York Times bestselling “enduring masterpiece” (The Atlantic) about a lifelong friendship between two women from Naples

Beginning in the 1950s in a poor but vibrant neighborhood on the outskirts of Naples, Elena Ferrante’s four-volume story spans almost sixty years, as its main characters, the fiery and unforgettable Lila and the bookish narrator, Elena, become women, wives, mothers, and leaders, all the while maintaining a complex and at times conflicted friendship.

This first novel in the series follows Lila and Elena from their fateful meeting as ten-year-olds through their school years and adolescence. Through the lives of these two women, Ferrante tells the story of a neighborhood, a city, and a country as it is transformed in ways that, in turn, also transform the relationship between two women.

©2012 GO Team! Enterprises (P)2015 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Hillary Huber's subtly shaded performance couldn't be better as she reveals the complexities that separate and connect the two women.... Huber's delivery of this well-plotted, absorbing story of friendship will leave listeners wanting more." (AudioFile)

What listeners say about My Brilliant Friend

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Americanised

If you could sum up My Brilliant Friend in three words, what would they be?

Coming of age tale set in 1950s Naples; think of Glasgow tenements on the Mediterranean.

What do you think the narrator could have done better?

The American narrator could have resigned her commission and handed over to an Anglo-Italian.

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35 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Reasonable story spoilt by poor narration

I quite enjoyed the story, setting and what must be the authentic perspective of this book. However it was definitely too lengthy and could have done with a more assertive editor. I also wondered how good the translation was as sometimes the language just didn't flow smoothly. I have listened to many audio books and generally am very impressed by the narrators and their abilities to create unique voices for each of the characters. This narrator was very weak, I ended up listening on a slightly higher speed to make her voice less monotonous. Worst of all though were the mispronounciations - surely it is easy to clarify a word you are unure of? Worst of all, changing the pronunciation of the main character's name at random points is inexcusable!

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35 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

The plebs were us

"The plebs were that fight for food and wine,the quarrel over how should be served first and better, that dirty floor on which the waiters clattered back and forth, those incredible vulgar toasts. The plebs were my mother, who had drunk wine and now was leaning against my father's shoulder, while he, serious, laughed, his mouth gaping, at the sexual allusions."
Elena Ferrante, My Brilliant Friend


I start with that quote to dissipate any ideas that this book is a romance novel or a thriller, it is about people, poor people with a restricted point of view, fighting for scraps among themselves, people for whom the world is their neighborhood, the street they inhabit, is about the love, the hate, the jealousies, the minutia of of life, the binds of society on individuals life, it is about two little girls that reinvent themselves by caring for each other by competing with each other, by regarding each other's brilliance and outshining themselves.
This is not a romanticized view of this lives, this is the nitty gritty of everyday life, were love, money and sex are commodities, chess pieces to win better lives opportunities, This is a place where fourteen year old girls are planning a woman's life, and they are lucky if they do not give birth till they are seventeen.
This is not the Naples of tourists, this where the shadowy camorra has its roots, violence is part of life and is never far, a place where education is an impossible expense. A place where even dreams are as dangerous, as intelligent girls.

“Her quickness of mind was like a hiss, a dart, a lethal bite.”
Elena Ferrante, My Brilliant Friend

Beautifully written realism of a period, a place and a culture, a reconstruction of what most would like to ignore, the common lives of the common people, as they are, with small achievements, that hide heroic struggles, especially for women. This is not a book with big gestures, it is insular, a portrait with limited panorama like the view of the children it describes.

“Children don’t know the meaning of yesterday, of the day before yesterday, or even of tomorrow, everything is this, now: the street is this, the doorway is this, the stairs are this, this is Mamma, this is Papa, this is the day, this the night.”
― Elena Ferrante, My Brilliant Friend


“We were twelve years old, but we walked along the hot streets of the neighborhood, amid the dust and flies that the occasional old trucks stirred up as they passed, like two old ladies taking the measure of lives of disappointment, clinging tightly to each other. No one understood us, only we two—I thought—understood one another.”
― Elena Ferrante, My Brilliant Friend

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27 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Couldn't finish it

American narrator inevitably fails to give a good voice to 1950s Naples. Story very stretched out - not one if you like your novels to have a bit more plot.

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23 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Audible version so boring

The voice reading this story does not come across as the slightest bit Italian. The slow southern drawl is so irritating - I can't stand it any longer!

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23 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

A brutally honest account of growing up in Naples

This book has found a place in my top 10 audiobooks. It is a story of friendship, told from the point of view of Lenu, she tells about her, and her best friend Lila's childhood, the harsh life they had growing up in Naples in the 1950s and their relationship to one another, each of them is defined by the other.
I started reading the book for a book group and downloaded the audio book as I was busy at the time and wasn't sure I would finish the book in time, so thought I'd be able to cram the story into any spare gaps with the audiobook. Very quickly the book fell by the wayside and I found myself listening to the audiobook for long stretches.
The authors style is nothing I have previously encountered, her prose is spare at a time when most novels tends towards the poetic. The narration is in keeping with the style of the story and is never overly dramatic. The Italian pronunciation was a highlight for me. This may make the story sound boring but in fact the opposite is true, it was refreshing to have the story told frankly and without frills, as if a friend were telling you the story of their life. I think this is part of the reason why so many people love this book.
Add to this the mystery of the author, who has chosen to remain anonymous. There is even some speculation that the author may be a man, although I doubt this, given the inherent underlying feminist principles adopted in the story telling.
I was very sad when this finished but delighted to know that the story continued with the next book, "Story of a New Name".
In summary, this is a book that you will either love or hate. I hope like me, you love it.

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  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

21 minutes in -so bored I switched off

If this book wasn’t for you, who do you think might enjoy it more?

I only downloaded this book as we are discussing it in our book club. I have stopped listening as I still have to read the wretched thing and am wondering if it is the distraction of the dull as ditchwater narration that is putting me off. I need to go back to 'the source' to find out. If you like the tedious, self -conscious pretentiousness of Proust, where nothing actually happens except a clever writer writing in a clever manner and you have literally nothing better to do with your life, then this might be the book for you! I found it an utterly sterile experience.

Has My Brilliant Friend put you off other books in this genre?

I certainly wont be voting to read the rest of the series on the basis of this audio experience. I hope the physical version is more appealing.

Is this a 'genre' book then? Some sort of fluff to appeal to us ladies?

Who might you have cast as narrator instead of Hillary Huber?

Almost anyone. I did find it distinctly odd to listen to an Italian Novel read by an American. Worse still, she sounds as bored as I felt. Paint by numbers narration.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from My Brilliant Friend?

Pretty much all the tedious first 20 minutes. I can't remember any of the characters names and I don't care what happens to any of them. I fear where this book is going, as we are being tempted (obviously not very tempted in my case) to wonder why an old woman has chosen to disappear and we are still back at the narrator's reminiscences of their school encounters. This might be desperately unfair. I might like it when I read it, but at the moment I don't care what happens, at all.

Any additional comments?

Think that says it all. I do hope the book is better or I am going to have to find serious reserves of tact to engage with the person who chose this book for book club ;-)

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16 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Good story but awful narrator

I liked this story, although it certainly didn't live up to the hype!

I thought the narrator was truly dreadful and couldn't bear her voice; it really grated! This book would be so much better if it had been read by a British person, rather than an American!

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15 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

A story that pulls you along compellingly

What made the experience of listening to My Brilliant Friend the most enjoyable?

There is no apparent plot, however, ordinary life is like that. Ferrante`s fluid prose carries you along with a somewhat morbid tone and as each event presents itself in the lives of these two Napolini girls from the 1940s, you become irresistibly tangled in the story`s web.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Let me say this first, the narrator, Hillary Huber is a lovely reader, however, please, please, please Audible, Italian book: Italian accent. I had to continually remind myself when listening that the story was not set in USA.

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  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

My brilliant friend

Terrible narration. So boring struggled to stick with it for 20 minutes then gave up.

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13 people found this helpful