Lena and Lila's story continues. Lila has chosen marriage to Stefano and a life helping Stefano and her in-laws run their grocery stores and, now, the shoe factory which has come into being thanks to Lila's design work. Lena continues studying at a classical high school in Naples, often working 18-hour days at her parents' cramped kitchen table. Both women are exposed - matter-of-factly - to a shocking level of sexual and other violence, primarily at the hands of men who love them.
Once again Ferrante brings the inner development of two young women to gorgeously vivid life. The writing is so intelligent, and yet reads like a soap opera that one can't walk away from. In particular, the long stretch in which the friends vacation together on the beach in Ischia beats any binge TV going, in my view. I put down number two with one hand and picked up number three with the other.
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