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avesmaria's review against another edition
5.0
This book is so short I could have finished it in a day. But it was so emotionally difficult it took me almost a month.
I don’t think I’ve ever read a book like this, with such an uncomfortable and brutally real dissection of the ambiguity and consumption motherhood brings. I almost felt bad reading it on Mother’s Day.
I don’t think I’ve ever read a book like this, with such an uncomfortable and brutally real dissection of the ambiguity and consumption motherhood brings. I almost felt bad reading it on Mother’s Day.
liltag's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
oricrowley15's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
babiri's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Classic ferrante; similar to the Neapolitan Novels and I can see where she might’ve picked some pieces to include in her later works. Our narrator, Leda, reflects on motherhood and selfhood, and how the two intersect and distance themselves from each other at times, and these reflections are juxtaposed with her observations of a Neapolitan family, particularly a young mother who appears natural and loving one scene then aggravated and exhausted the next. A really fast and easy read, though heart rending all the same. Something about her writing is so captivating, it’s hard to put down. Even though her subjects tend to remain the same, I still eat it all up. No one does the female psyche like she does. 4/5
softrosemint's review against another edition
3.5
Compellingly readable as always. Ferrante has an incessant need to examine the female condition from every possible angle and at every possible stage of life. A lot of the themes familiar from her previous works - womanhood, the intelligentsia vs the coarser less educated people, etc. - are present in here, this time represented through the lense of motherhood. Some of this may feel repetitive to casual readers of Ferrante's oeuvre but I really think she is an author whose body of work is worth examining and knowing in its entirety.
gabivitale's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
erinastin's review against another edition
5.0
Exquisitely nuanced. I love the way Elena Ferrante writes women.
pixiebix's review against another edition
3.75
Elena Ferrante, I do love you so!
I’ve read (and loved) half of the Neapolitan Quartet and The Lying Life Of Adults. More recently, I have DNF’d Troubling Love. This made me nervous for The Lost Daughter. These worries were unwarranted; how entertaining and absorbing this was to read!
The Lost Daughter is extremely simple and detail oriented. There is no sweeping plotline, nor are there any major revelations, character arcs, or changes from beginning to end. It’s the prose—its candidness and cadence and momentum and perceptiveness—that is so gripping. Ferrante could plonk any character in any situation—in this case, them largely just sitting on a beach—and make it one of the most compelling, lucid narrative ever.
The Lost Daughter is principally about motherhood—navigating it and losing yourself in it. It’s about maternal guilt, and the erasure of the self through parenthood, and the cost of trying to cling onto that sense of self. Our MC’s own approach (or reaction) to motherhood is often neglectful and damaging, yet this feels like a natural consequence in the wider context of intergenerational trauma.
These are not new topics, or topics that don’t already have a lot of discourse surrounding them. This particular story feels unique and so incredibly true to life, though. Ferrante writes some of the most realistic dialogue I’ve ever read, and her monologues are much the same. Conversation and thoughts in Ferrante’s books are associative: we jump from one worry or assumption or idea to the next to the next (as they do outside of the literary world), and this lends the story such an intense, visceral realism. Combine this natural flare for writing and characterisation with incredibly astute observations about human thought and behaviour, and you have something just as compelling as The Lost Daughter.
Beautiful (and cerebral) stuff. What a magical woman Ferrante is!
I’ve read (and loved) half of the Neapolitan Quartet and The Lying Life Of Adults. More recently, I have DNF’d Troubling Love. This made me nervous for The Lost Daughter. These worries were unwarranted; how entertaining and absorbing this was to read!
The Lost Daughter is extremely simple and detail oriented. There is no sweeping plotline, nor are there any major revelations, character arcs, or changes from beginning to end. It’s the prose—its candidness and cadence and momentum and perceptiveness—that is so gripping. Ferrante could plonk any character in any situation—in this case, them largely just sitting on a beach—and make it one of the most compelling, lucid narrative ever.
The Lost Daughter is principally about motherhood—navigating it and losing yourself in it. It’s about maternal guilt, and the erasure of the self through parenthood, and the cost of trying to cling onto that sense of self. Our MC’s own approach (or reaction) to motherhood is often neglectful and damaging, yet this feels like a natural consequence in the wider context of intergenerational trauma.
These are not new topics, or topics that don’t already have a lot of discourse surrounding them. This particular story feels unique and so incredibly true to life, though. Ferrante writes some of the most realistic dialogue I’ve ever read, and her monologues are much the same. Conversation and thoughts in Ferrante’s books are associative: we jump from one worry or assumption or idea to the next to the next (as they do outside of the literary world), and this lends the story such an intense, visceral realism. Combine this natural flare for writing and characterisation with incredibly astute observations about human thought and behaviour, and you have something just as compelling as The Lost Daughter.
Beautiful (and cerebral) stuff. What a magical woman Ferrante is!