Name: The Story of a New Name
Rating: 4.486186770428016 (257 reviews)
ISBN: 9781787702233

Elena Ferrante

Ann Goldstein

The international bestseller, now in B-format paperback with a brand new cover.

The Story of a New Name

A novel in the bestselling quartet about two very different women and their complex friendship: “Everyone should read anything with Ferrante’s name on it” (The Boston Globe). The follow-up to My Brilliant Friend, The Story of a New Name continues the epic New York Times–bestselling literary quartet that has inspired an HBO series, and returns us to the world of Lila and Elena, who grew up together in post-WWII Naples, Italy. In The Story of a New Name, Lila has recently married and made her entrée into the family business; Elena, meanwhile, continues her studies and her exploration of the world beyond the neighborhood that she so often finds stifling. Marriage appears to have imprisoned Lila, and the pressure to excel is at times too much for Elena. Yet the two young women share a complex and evolving bond that is central to their emotional lives and a source of strength in the face of life’s challenges. In these Neapolitan Novels, Elena Ferrante, “one of the great novelists of our time” (The New York Times), gives us a poignant and universal story about friendship and belonging, a meditation on love and jealousy, freedom and commitment—at once a masterfully plotted page-turner and an intense, generous-hearted family saga. “Imagine if Jane Austen got angry and you’ll have some idea of how explosive these works are.” —The Australian “Brilliant . . . captivating and insightful . . . the richness of her storytelling is likely to please fans of Sara Gruen and Silvia Avallone.” —Booklist (starred review)

l🌀

Loved this! Got to read the whole thing and it was so tender and thoughtful and sad and Italian. I’m changing My Brilliant Friend to 4 1/2 because this series is incredible. I can’t wait to read the next two ☺️. Elena gets to the heart of everything around her in a way I love to see from a tender narrator. Ferrante is a killer for real and I will be putting the combined four volume novel on my wedding registry.

Eli Alvah Huckabee

Deeply empathetic, emotionally intelligent, RIVETING

Annie Millman

writing is exceptionally beautiful as always. i can’t believe i didn’t see the **** and **** detour coming but yeah sure, naturally

petrina

elena ferrante you pace too masterful your imagery too genius your characters are too well-rounded they'll kill you

alice

beautifully written and captivates you in a way that is not easy to achieve. i found myself turning page after page and being moved by every single chapter. Elena Ferrante has such a humanistic way to write that makes the reader inmerse themselves in the novel without even realizing it, I found myself weeping or grieving at times. At first, I was getting annoyed by the endless amount of characters, but I learnt to love this aspect. Cannot wait to read the next one in the series.

mari

marlisa

This series has really picked up momentum. I’m all in after book 2

Sarah Erle

Tom Koss

Another re-read. 

Excellent, just like the first

Deepika Ramesh

I have lost track of where these books start and end. To me, the books are one LONG novel which I can't stop reading, and which will forever make me remember May 2020 as the month I spent in the interesting, hostile, difficult neighbourhood of Lila and Elena, and followed their lives with a renewed love for reading and compelling stories.

catalina

Pasé el libro anterior y como la mitad de éste enrabiada con Elena, sin embargo, llegué a simpatizar con ella y a verle similitudes conmigo misma. Yo creo que esa es la razón principal de que no me gustara la Lenú, veía muchas cosas que mí en ella (que en realidad no quería aceptar).

Y me da pena porque tuve una amistad similar como las de ellas dos, y al llegar a esa parte dónde Lenú quería volver a ver a Lila pero no lo hacía, me dio un dolorcito en el corazón porque nosotras, a diferencia de ella, cortamos por lo sano hace tiempo ya.

Como sea, Lila sigue siendo mi personaje favorito. La gente sigue siendo una mierda con ella (incluyendo a Elena) y me da rabia que la Lila siga creyendo que ella es el problema. Ósea, no la culpo de todas las cosas que hizo, si mi vida fuera una mierda yo cometería los mismos errores para salir de esa realidad aunque sea por un rato. Necesita una escena como la de "It's not your fault" en Good Will Hunting.

Me encanta que aquí se hable de los tabúes de la maternidad y la sexualidad feminina principalmente en la época (aunque ciertos discursos y palabras sexista las seguimos escuchando en pleno siglo XXI).

En fin, amo a la Lila, amo a la Mariarosa, me encanta como va evolucionando la Lenú (sé que en el próx. libro lo hará más) y todos los hombres de este libro: los Solara, Stefano, LOS Sarratore, etc. son un asco (menos Enzo).

Read this for 7 hours straight today, I think that sums it up. The last chapters were pure heroin. 

Klára Kováčiková 

Ferrante’s writing has me in its grip for a while now. There’s intensity in her writing that I have never encountered before. I have yet to read the last two parts of the Neapolitan quartet, and yet I am sure of what awaits me: stupefaction of the best kind.  

Vaishali Batra

Elena Ferrante really is one of the greatest writers of our time. Her writing is gripping, dynamic and absolutely riveting. Once it draws you in, it is difficult to put down, to come up for breath.

While Ferrante's talent for gripping plots driven by messy people is undeniable, the novel's strength remains the nuanced depiction of its protagonists - Lila and Lenu. As the second instalment from the Neapolitan Novels, "The Story of a New Name" picks up exactly where "My Brilliant Friend Left Off". It then continues to follow Lila and Lenu through their late teens and twenties and sees their relationship develop further.

Ferrante is unmatched in grasping the complex dynamics of female relationships perfectly. With Lila and Lenu, it is never purely love and never purely hate - it is an inevitable and inescapable draw to each other, an influence on each other that is uninterrupted even when they are physically apart. Their pull to each other is so strong, the drama of their relationship so vivid, one cannot help but be drawn into it, too.

A lot of authors would have perhaps not developed their novel beyond this sole dynamic. However, Ferrante has given so much life to both the remainder of the cast of characters and Naples that the whole work is all the more vivid for it. The novel really feels like a masterwork of the master writers of old.

Elena Ferrante really is one of the greatest writers of our time. Her writing is gripping, dynamic and absolutely riveting. Once it draws you in, it is difficult to put down, to come up for breath.

While Ferrante's talent for gripping plots driven by messy people is undeniable, the novel's strength remains the nuanced depiction of its protagonists - Lila and Lenu. As the second instalment from the Neapolitan Novels, "The Story of a New Name" picks up exactly where "My Brilliant Friend Left Off". It then continues to follow Lila and Lenu through their late teens and twenties and sees their relationship develop further.

Ferrante is unmatched in grasping the complex dynamics of female relationships perfectly. With Lila and Lenu, it is never purely love and never purely hate - it is an inevitable and inescapable draw to each other, an influence on each other that is uninterrupted even when they are physically apart. Their pull to each other is so strong, the drama of their relationship so vivid, one cannot help but be drawn into it, too.

A lot of authors would have perhaps not developed their novel beyond this sole dynamic. However, Ferrante has given so much life to both the remainder of the cast of characters and Naples that the whole work is all the more vivid for it. The novel really feels like a masterwork of the master writers of old.

A New York Times BestsellerThe Neapolitan Novels (Book 2)A modern masterpice from one of Italy's most acclaimed authors. My Brillant Briend is a rich, intense, and generous-hearted portrait of two friends, Elena and Lila. Through their lives, Ferrante tells the story of a neighborhood, a city, and a country undergoing momentous change.

I wish I could give this one million stars

The Story of a New Name

Reviews

Highlights