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I want to thank Elena Ferrante aka Lenu, for writing such an excellent and complete story of the lives of herself and her soulmate-crazy and brilliant best friend, Lila. The four books are chronological and start when the two girls are about 8 years old and continue into their sixties. I don't want to tell the story here but here are some of my observations about reading such a poignant, emotionally honest and complete story:

1. Life is hard and then you die. There is nothing easy about relationships, marriages, having and raising families, living on tight budgets, deciding what career path to take, dealing with family members on drugs, raising kids who are young and becoming sexual, and in this particular environment in Naples, Italy in the 50's, friends and families with a lot of influence who are basically mobsters. Elena takes us through all of these type of issues along with her high strung, highly opinionated and beautiful friend, Lila, who is the opposite of Lenu, never a compromiser, always aggressive and pushy, highly opinionated and willing to put her life at stake to stand up for herself and Lenu. Some of the situations are hilarious and amazing, others are depressing and life threatening.

2. I think the author has been willing to admit many personal thoughts and reactions to various ultra personal situations that are eye openers as to how relationships actually work. The submissive girl can so easily yield to the thoughts and opinions of the dominate girl, that her whole life is changed not necessarily for the better. The one with low self esteem or less confidence can become overly ready to do almost anything for love or approval. It's so true and yet so painful to watch. And yet the friendship endures and each is successful in working their way through a world, especially in this era, so dominated by the desires and customs of parents and the men that they end up having relationships with.

3. There is interesting history of the politics of Italy of the era, facists, communists, the fight for labor unions and equality, the opinions of the liberal professors in the universities of the era, the disdain each group has for the other and the two girls, each in totally different settings, becoming part of this whole politically morphing time. Some of each of their friends become very involved in the mess, which includes murder, friends dragged off into the chaos in real danger.

4. There is a lot of realistic and sometimes difficult to handle marriage and relationship situations, adultery, abandonment, way too much forgiveness of one particular womanizing fellow who affects the life of each of the girls who are becoming women. However, it is written in a way that almost makes some of their stupid and immature decisions totally understandable, while each of them try to help the other get through horrible and sometimes almost funny and pathetic situations occur. There is one sexual description of what one of the girls walks in on that nailed me, so real and yet a ridiculous eye opener, almost as if I had to see it to understand what a dope this guy really was. This was another example of how Elena was able to make us walk in her shoes. I'm guessing she had to be chuckling as she finished writing this particular scene, maybe too much for some readers.

5. And then there is the never ending worry and difficult time raising the 5 kids that the two of them had, both stepping in to help the other from time to time. Not wanting to tell the story, there is an event involving one of the kids that almost devastates one of the mothers.

In the end, we have watched in great detail the full lives of two ordinary and yet both extraordinary women, and I will miss them both, always hoping that maybe, a fifth book will show up.