The Story of the Lost Child Paperback – 1 August 2020

I haven't read anything like this. I am uplifted yet devastated.

Writing this close to the truth of how we feel in our heads is rarely voiced. I haven’t yet read anything like this quartet.. an amazing tale of Lenu & Lila’s childhood friendship through the years till their twilight years. A must read.

Love the labyrinth of emotions the layers the descriptions all so real so intense ..transports you right there

The climactic final episode of the Neapolitan Quartet of novels. Stunning in its development and in Ferrante's delivery. The finale will leave you gasping for breath as you anticipate Lila's disappearance with which the first of the Quartet starts. And even then there is a surprise, closing the loop of the opening friendship as small children. What a pity there is no more. And with the apparent "discovery" of Ferrante's identity, unlikely to be any more of this genre.

Final volume of Ferrante's fabulous Neapolitan series, and it's utterly brilliant, taking the reader back to the first book.This follows the two friends from their 30s to their 60s; narrator Elena is becoming an increasingly successful author, while Lila remains in the same Naples neighbourhood, running a computer business. Both mothers already, they each fall pregnant again.... Much of this story focusses on the impact their children have on their lives; the sadness as the beautiful young people of the first couple of volumes grow old and suffer various problems.But these are not just light reading - the characters are complex and this truly is great writing.Having read all four books over just a few weeks, I could gladly re-read them all.

I don't know if I have the right words to express how I feel after having read this final instalment to the Neapolitan Quartet. I had kept stalling the book because I did not want to end my relations with Lenu and Lila so soon. I had known them, just last year, in June, when I read the first book. Today, with four books down, it feels like a lifetime. The author has really taken me a down a memory lane, not just of two Italian girls but also their neighbourhood and their beloved, violent city, Naples that has grown and sighed with them. In this book, we find the young Neapolitan boys and girls mature into middle-aged adults travelling into old age with their lives connecting and disconnecting like channels of river running into and away from each other. As Lenu had put it, it really was the 'most painful' of all the other novels in the Quartet. I kept holding on to the book, not for a second wanting to put it down. After ages, reading felt like breathing, almost. I wanted to consume it as fast as I could but somewhere I felt it was the novel that was consuming me. It made me pause, re-read parts of it. Thoughts raced through my mind, submerging me deeper into the changing city. Ferrante drew me into their lives, the politics that governed their existence and offered insights that stopped me and had me glossing over the past of these characters and my life and the social space I inhabit. I don't think I have anything else to say because it would only spoil your experience of this Quartet. If you want to know what lifelong friendship feels like, this is the book you should read. Watch the show/ or let yourself drown into the author's imagination of Naples through the four books. For now, I wish farewell to Lenu and Lila with a heart heavy by the sorrow of parting and never meeting again.

Although a slight improvement on book 3, extensive monologue and relegation of most characters to mere props means that book 4 by no means measures up to the high expectations generated by books one and two.

A real good book. Worth reaing.