Only in bad novels characters always do and say the right thing, and events are always explained by clear and direct causes. This is the key to the tetralogy “My brilliant friend” by Elena Ferrante. All the characters are vivid, imperfect and real, like their everyday lives. You’re drawn to them and then want to take a distance from them, but getting to the end of this contradictory story about friendship, Italy and Neaples makes you wish you could read more of it.
I bought the first book of the tetralogy last spring because I wanted to read something italian in Italian, and because I was curiuos about an author I hadn’t read before. I was surprised to find out that the books are international bestsellers and very popular in Sweden too, so belive all the hype and just read them