When I grow up -My Brilliant Friend

 This week's read was “my Brilliant friend” by Elena Ferrante. I was quite excited for this book since last week, Dr. Beasley had mentioned it was his favourite of the semesters novels. Now, the first thing that jumped out at me when reading is how brilliant Elena’s writing is. It made me never want to put down the book. While Elena revisits her childhood, there is a lot of violence and the use of words like dead, blood, rage. While all of this could very quickly make a book grim, Elena’s writing kept things more light hearted in a way. The heavy topics didn’t depress me, but rather were part of a bigger picture of Elena’s childhood and why she and Lila seek an escape. This book did have ALOT of characters, and sometimes it was a bit hard to keep track of everyone. I often found myself rereading sections and getting characters confused with each other. However overall, I would say it was a fun read and one of my favourites of the semester.

Now onto the focus of the story, the friendship between Lila and Elena. In her childhood, Elena is very drawn to her brilliant friend Lila and the drive she processes. We see Elena, compare herself with Lila and her natural ability to excel. Starting at the young age of 6 when it is revealed that Lila had already taught herself to read and write. The jealous element shared between the two, acts as sort of a fuel for both of them. It pushes Lila for example to excel in her studies to surpass Lila. By the end of the book however, it becomes clear that Elena’s education has brought her into a different world than the others. This separation contributes to her no longer being able to always compare herself to Lila, since their situations are so different. We see Lila and Elena push for something out of the violence of their neighborhood, building expectations for a better future. However life has other plans, and while Elena is able to continue her education, Lila’s father refuses to let her advance because she is a girl. This aspect of the story made me think back to my own childhood and the dreams I had for my future. We have these ideas of what we want to be as kids, who we want to become as adults. As we get older, things change, and I think a lot of us have to accept reality. In Elena's story, we can see how she starts feeling out of place because of her education, realizing she's not the same as Lila anymore. On the other end, Lila's future is limited by her father. We see her lose her drive for education, her shoe-making venture, and settling with marriage by the end of the book. It makes me curious to see what happens next with Lila and Elena’s futures in the following books, and I think I will get a copy of The Story of a New Name.

Question: What are your predictions for the events in the next books in the series?