Name: The Days of Abandonment
Rating: 3.967391304347826 (46 reviews)

Elena Ferrante

When her husband Mario leaves her, Olga, left to care for two young children, enters a long period of self-doubt and pity, until she acknowledges the truth about her marriage.

The Days of Abandonment

Although this read was repetitive at times, it was interesting and captivating. Whether good or bad captivating, it was a raw expression of the author and the story she wanted to write. I liked the lack of subtleties and softness at times, the honesty, the lack of care as to what a reader would think about her words. This book made me personally become more aware of how people can lose themselves in difficult times, it felt ridiculous at times, but it also awakened a sense  of vigilence and power in the woman in me, who also tends to get frightened about abandonment and dependency on other people. 

Nina Alexandra Bacrau

cedar winslow

damn. it’s not often i read a book cover to cover and stay viscerally engaged but miss feronte managed it! what an interesting and depressing protagonist and an interesting and depressing society and ugh men and yeah great book!

Riley Baker

This book was so well structured and well-written for being based off a singular event that happens in the first sentence of the book. The writing explores deeply the complications of motherhood and womanhood in modern society and does it in a way that flows so smoothly along with the rest of the plot. It’s an extremely depressing read in some sections while Olga kind of moves in and out of depressive episodes and hallucinations but one that always kept me engaged and had a generally happy ending so that’s always good!

"She is among the greatest Italian authors of recent years."-Corriere della Sera "Ferrante dissects the personal microcosm so well, and with awesome lucidity and precision shows us the meanderings of a woman's mind, the suffering that accompanies being abandoned, and the awful rumbling of time passing."-El Mundo "Elena Ferrante has given us a startlingly beautiful novel of exceptional and bold strength."-Il Manifesto "Severe and rigorously unsentimental, packed full of passages written with dizzying intensity at a rare and acute pitch. Ferrante is at her best when her writing holds tight to those nagging, niggling obsessions that make up our mental landscapes."-La Stampa A national bestseller for almost an entire year, The Days of Abandonment shocked and captivated its Italian public when first published. It is the gripping story of a woman's descent into devastating emptiness after being abandoned by her husband with two young children to care for. When she finds herself literally trapped within the four walls of their high-rise apartment, she is forced to confront her ghosts, the potential loss of her own identity, and the possibility that life may never return to normal.

Olivera Mitić

The typical Ferrante style shines through, while also managing to bring something new to the table. 

This was at times a very, very hard, emotionally draining and heavy read, but once Olga's sanity rises back up to the surface, it feels more than rewarding. Did it touch me as much as My Brilliant Friend did? No, but that's more a problem of the experiences I've had versus the things this book talks about. On that note, I hope that I won't ever be in a situation to relate to this fully.

Rarely have the foundations upon which our ideas of motherhood and womanhood rest been so candidly questioned. This compelling novel tells the story of one woman's headlong descent into what she calls an 'absence of sense' after being abandoned by her husband. Olga's Òdays of abandonment become a desperate, dangerous freefall into the darkest places of the soul as she roams the empty streets of a city that she has never learned to love. When she finds herself trapped inside the four walls of her apartment in the middle of a summer heat wave, Olga is forced to confront her ghosts, the potential loss of her own identity, and the possibility that life may never return to normal again.

Kathryn

It was very uncomfortable to read, and I think that was the purpose of the writing. I do rate it high because this book made me feel something, and I hadn't had a book that made me rage and pity many things (or people) in it.

“Stunning . . . The raging, torrential voice of the author is something rare.” —The New York Times Rarely have the foundations upon which our ideas of motherhood and womanhood rest been so candidly questioned. This compelling novel tells the story of one woman’s headlong descent into what she calls an “absence of sense” after being abandoned by her husband. Olga’s “days of abandonment” become a desperate, dangerous freefall into the darkest places of the soul as she roams the empty streets of a city that she has never learned to love. When she finds herself trapped inside the four walls of her apartment in the middle of a summer heat wave, Olga is forced to confront her ghosts, the potential loss of her own identity, and the possibility that life may never return to normal again.

Janet Doré

I did a no-no...I judged a book by it's cover. And, of course, it misled me. I was in the mood to get lost in a story of a woman freeing herself from the chains of a limiting life...losing herself in passion and a bit of ecstasy thrown in for good measure. If I would have read the book jacket, I would have been enlightened that I was treading into a completely different variety of losing oneself. But, I didn't...(because sometimes I want no hints). While the writing was OUTSTANDING, I found myself irritated by the pages and pages of a woman in the throes of mania. I'm all for a healthy breakdown every once in awhile, but this one went a bit too far for my personal taste.

Ferrante is decidely not my typical read, but I wanted to contrast her with Knausgaard, since I've seen so many comparisons of the two. 

I had a complicated relationship with the book, and with the narrator. Simply put, she descends into a sort of madness after her husband leaves her, and the entirety of the book documents this descent. The minutiae is everything, and that's the point. Ferrante puts us so far into the reader's head that we start to feel things with her as she goes about her daily life.

It was tough to get to that point of empathy- for me, at least. Her descent involves so much self-pitying, so much destructiveness, and so much outright cruelty (even towards her own children) that I began to wonder if Ferrante even *wanted* her readers to like the narrator. 

If you can pull through that, and the rambling abstractions that all too often accompany madness, this is an incredible read.

The Days of Abandonment

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