The Story of a New Name (Neapolitan Novels, #2) in James Mustich's 1000 Books to Read Before You Die

Feb 01, 2015 Laura rated it liked it

Shelves: read-2016, italian-literature, mtbr-challenge-2016, kindle, viciados-em-livros, historical-fiction, e-books, family-saga, italy

In this second book of the Neopolitan tetralogy, the plot is mostly centered on two characters: Elena Greco and Lila Cerullo.

In the 1960s and 1970s in Naples, both Elena and Lila start a new period of their life: Lila got married with 16 years-old with Stefano Carraci, a prosperous grocer; on the other hand, Elena decided to continue with her education.

During a meeting between the two friends, Lila asked Elena to hide a box of notebooks from her husband. However, Elena decides to drop them in th ...more

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Aug 30, 2023 Christina rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 1000-books-to-read-before-you-die

Meh, it’s good. I see lots of criticism of Nino. Yes, he’s a POS, but so is everyone else. They are all awful and yet somehow they maintain these toxic relationships. If you like soap operas with rape and domestic violence, here you go. 2 more of these left.

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May 19, 2020 Carlton rated it really liked it

Shelves: historical-fiction, 1000-books-to-read

The Story of a New Name is the engagingly immersive story of the lives of Elena (Lenu) and Lila from ages about 16 to 23 in early to mid 1960’s Naples which started in My Brilliant Friend. Although a sequel which needs to be read as such, and not as cohesive as My Brilliant Friend, it tells the coming of age of the main characters and their friends well.
I found myself annoyed at the passionate silliness of some episodes and disappointed when years were recounted in summary (as it is the tale of ...more

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