My Brilliant Friend: Book One: Childhood, Adolescence / Elena Ferrante, 331 pp.

A patron encouraged me to read this, the first in a cycle of four books called the Neapolitan Novels which traces the lives of Lila and Lenu.  Written in an unusual, almost flat style, I kept thinking that the novel was a bit dull.  And yet I kept turning pages and now have the remaining three titles on request.

Lena and Lila are both brilliant, in fact, yet their life paths diverge early.  They are born in 1944 in a Naples neighborhood of bakers, porters, cobblers, and shady characters with ties to the camorra, or crime syndicate, of Naples. Their bond is intense if tumultuous, and occasionally destructive.  This first novel traces their early childhoods through the youthful marriage of one of the two women.

What seems at first to be a simple story becomes increasingly spellbinding as the reader turns pages.  Ferrante shows amazing psychological acuity and has created two unforgettable young women.