This is a brilliant and very entertaining book. Loved it more than the previous Neapolitan novels.
Her writing feels like you know the characters in person.

I listened to this book and Marisa Tome was a terrific narrator. I only finishes the book because I had a long drive. Overall, I found the book uninteresting. The charm of her earlier novels is missing. I do not recommend this book.

This is the coming of age story of Giovanna, whose father reveals that she doesn’t have a pretty face, that she is like his dreadful unsophisticated sister, her Aunt Vittoria. With that new knowledge, Giovanna heads into the world adrift, keenly watching her parents, her aunt, her girl friends and their parents, teachers, and boyfriends, until she discovers Roberto, the intelligent studious and charismatic fiancé of Guiliana, and she falls in love. Roberto has managed to pull himself out of the poorest neighborhood, published articles about justice and religion, earning even her father’s respect. In Ferrante’s beautiful writing every psychological nuance is significant. Excellent novel, gorgeously translated from the Italian.

Ferrante has written a good coming of age novel. Giovanna overhears her parents talking and believes they think her ugly. This leads to a chain of events featuring her aunt and parents who have battled over the ages. The class distinctions in Naples come into play but I feel Ferranto has just mentioned them so she could be vulgar. I was not comfortable reading the lewd descriptions but the main theme of the story comes out well in several statements like "Adults tell you not to lie but they lie themselves." The novel could well have been titled, "The Bracelet."

Getting in the head of a young teenaged girl is not for the weak. What a ride. If you’ve done it once, you might want to do it again only this time in Italy. Or maybe not. I hated, hated, hated the ending. I hated a whole lot of the characters, too. But the writing is incredible. You just can’t stop, especially with such beautiful writing/translation/depth and drama. What is life as a young teenager girl if not a whole lot of drama? And from her perspective, a whole lot of dramatic adults.

This is my first Ferrante book and maybe I should have started with the more popular ones as this made me quite uncomfortable. But isn’t that the point of reading? To lose yourself in the control of a storyteller who shows you what life is like lived in a completely unfamiliar way? So if that’s the bar to rise above, this book certainly takes you there.

If you are comfortable stepping into a young girl/woman’s shoes and following her through her parents divorce and consequences, through learning how to deal with men/boys, and family dynamics, this is brilliant. There’s no better writer to get you all crazy like a teenaged girl. A quirky, interesting, feisty teenaged girl. And that’s not something you get to do very often. Certainly not as brilliantly written as this.

After overhearing a nasty comment about her looks, a teenage girl begins a search into her parents life, only to find deception and snobbery. It begins the search for her own value. A crush on a older intellectual man begins a journey into own deception and values.

A wonderful, powerful, and dark coming-of-age story. If, like me, you had trouble with the Neapolitan novels and who knows why-- maybe the pinky/lavender book art or egregious mismarketing of Ferrante as an author of "chick lit"-- try her standalone novels, beginning with Days of Abandonment. Like Days of Abandonment, The Lying Life of Adults is an ugly book, obsessed with its own ugliness, interested in the voluntary abasement/nihilism of teenage girls. To her childhood friend, Giovanna spits: "Only b****es like you study like parrots, get promoted, and are respected by their boyfriends. I don't study, I get flunked, and I'm a whore." Wow! And still Giovanna is vulnerable enough to be made and unmade in the eyes of others, specifically the men around her. I love too, that this book has neither a happy nor unhappy ending, I feel like bad girls are always doomed in fiction and these kinds of books are most often narrated from the perspective of their introverted friend. Powerful move to give the first person back to the flunkies! Loved it, recommend it for Ferrante fans and anyone on the fence.

You have everything in this novel to keep you entertained for many days: a coming-of-age tale, class conflict, generational vendettas and grudges, bad romance and etc. Did I mentioned that translation from the Italian to English by Ann Goldstein is superb as well? Do not miss it! Another quality read from enigmatic Elena Ferrante.
Soon to be Netflix series....

Ferrante moves from the working class Naples of her Neapolitan novels to the middle class city and academe. Her main character transitions from a sweet and happy 12 year old to an estranged 16 year old. Often it is difficult to remember that she is a child of 14 or 15 - her thoughts seem to be those of an older person. As she engages the world, her appearance and relationships with boys and men are the most important standards by which she defines herself.

I enjoyed Ferrante’s Neapolitan series, and I was determined to enjoy The Lying Life of Adults. I tried reading it and Giovanna’s self-absorption and her hatred of her parents and what they supposedly did to her was too much. I started with reading and then went to the audiobook, thinking maybe if I heard the words spoken, it might make a difference. The only difference was that Giovanna and her Aunt Vittoria became more toxic. I know that there would be some rough language about sex. I expected that, but I really had hoped there would be some grown in Giovanna as the story followed her from age twelve to sixteen. The only grown seemed to be in her breasts. At the end there seems to be the possibility of more books to come and maybe Giovanna will eventually move out of her self-absorption, but I found no pleasure in this book.