Literary Fiction
Elena and Lila grow up in a poor, violent neighborhood of Naples, bound by a friendship full of rivalry, admiration and the hunger to escape.
An editorial discovery feature. This website does not sell this book or imply an author endorsement.
ON THE READING TABLE
Ferrante writes about friendship with the intensity usually reserved for romance, and the result is gripping.
The neighborhood is as much a character as the girls — its feuds, loyalties and limits shape every choice they make.
The first of four novels; groups that start here often read on together.
What does this book invite you to notice? Which voice, idea, or moment would you bring to a reading discussion? Browse the author’s profile for context, or suggest a conversation to the team.
Share a discussion ideaKEEP EXPLORING
Historical FictionHistorical Fiction
Set before and during the Nigerian Civil War, three lives — a houseboy, a professor’s partner and an English writer — are bound together as a nation fractures.
View Book
Speculative FictionSpeculative Fiction
Klara, an Artificial Friend with remarkable powers of observation, watches from a store window and then from within a family, trying to understand the people she is meant to care for.
View Book
Magical RealismMagical Realism
Four generations of the Trueba family — clairvoyants, patriarchs and revolutionaries — live through love, prophecy and political upheaval in an unnamed Latin American country.
View Book
Historical FictionHistorical Fiction
Cora escapes a Georgia plantation on a railroad that runs, literally, beneath the soil — each state she reaches a different vision of America.
View BookYOUR NEXT CHAPTER STARTS HERE
Find your next book, share your work, or start a conversation. There’s a place for you here.