My Brilliant Friend
The Neapolitan Novels, Book 1
Failed to add items
Add to basket failed.
Add to wishlist failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
My Brilliant Friend
Buy Now for £12.99
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Hillary Huber
-
By:
-
Elena Ferrante
About this listen
Now an HBO series: the first volume in the New York Times bestselling “enduring masterpiece” (The Atlantic) about a lifelong friendship between two women from Naples
Beginning in the 1950s in a poor but vibrant neighborhood on the outskirts of Naples, Elena Ferrante’s four-volume story spans almost sixty years, as its main characters, the fiery and unforgettable Lila and the bookish narrator, Elena, become women, wives, mothers, and leaders, all the while maintaining a complex and at times conflicted friendship.
This first novel in the series follows Lila and Elena from their fateful meeting as ten-year-olds through their school years and adolescence. Through the lives of these two women, Ferrante tells the story of a neighborhood, a city, and a country as it is transformed in ways that, in turn, also transform the relationship between two women.
©2012 GO Team! Enterprises (P)2015 Blackstone Audio, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
Critic reviews
"Hillary Huber's subtly shaded performance couldn't be better as she reveals the complexities that separate and connect the two women.... Huber's delivery of this well-plotted, absorbing story of friendship will leave listeners wanting more." (AudioFile)
My Brilliant friend
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Not the runaway bestseller I thought it would be
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The narrator fits this story perfectly and did a wonderful job.
Slow starter but a wonderful coming of age story
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Some of the best character writing I’ve ever read
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Good
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Elena Ferrante, My Brilliant Friend
I start with that quote to dissipate any ideas that this book is a romance novel or a thriller, it is about people, poor people with a restricted point of view, fighting for scraps among themselves, people for whom the world is their neighborhood, the street they inhabit, is about the love, the hate, the jealousies, the minutia of of life, the binds of society on individuals life, it is about two little girls that reinvent themselves by caring for each other by competing with each other, by regarding each other's brilliance and outshining themselves.
This is not a romanticized view of this lives, this is the nitty gritty of everyday life, were love, money and sex are commodities, chess pieces to win better lives opportunities, This is a place where fourteen year old girls are planning a woman's life, and they are lucky if they do not give birth till they are seventeen.
This is not the Naples of tourists, this where the shadowy camorra has its roots, violence is part of life and is never far, a place where education is an impossible expense. A place where even dreams are as dangerous, as intelligent girls.
“Her quickness of mind was like a hiss, a dart, a lethal bite.”
Elena Ferrante, My Brilliant Friend
Beautifully written realism of a period, a place and a culture, a reconstruction of what most would like to ignore, the common lives of the common people, as they are, with small achievements, that hide heroic struggles, especially for women. This is not a book with big gestures, it is insular, a portrait with limited panorama like the view of the children it describes.
“Children don’t know the meaning of yesterday, of the day before yesterday, or even of tomorrow, everything is this, now: the street is this, the doorway is this, the stairs are this, this is Mamma, this is Papa, this is the day, this the night.”
― Elena Ferrante, My Brilliant Friend
“We were twelve years old, but we walked along the hot streets of the neighborhood, amid the dust and flies that the occasional old trucks stirred up as they passed, like two old ladies taking the measure of lives of disappointment, clinging tightly to each other. No one understood us, only we two—I thought—understood one another.”
― Elena Ferrante, My Brilliant Friend
The plebs were us
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Where does My Brilliant Friend rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
This isn't for those looking for a fast-paced story. There isn't a great deal of narrative, as such. Not a great deal happens. It's an absorbing examination of a childhood and adolescent friendship in a tough Naples neighbourhood. The characters are very well drawn, very believable, so you feel sympathetic or annoyed at their behaviour, just as you would with any teenager. I often found myself thinking "Yes, I remember how that felt". At the end of the book, I wanted to carry on knowing them, so I've just bought Book 2.Have you listened to any of Hillary Huber’s other performances? How does this one compare?
I haven't heard this narrator's performances before. I thought her reading suited the book well - slow, thoughtful, nuanced. Just one quibble: at one point about half way through, she used various pronunciations of Lila's name, which I found a little irritating.Absorbing but a little slow moving
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Wonderful story well narrated.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Too many names, and because I really didn’t care for any of the characters, found it difficult to remember who was who. I also found repetitive in places.
Although I felt the story was read well, the accent irritated me.
Not for me so I shan’t be continuing with the other three.
Disappointed
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Thoroughly absorbing
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.