The Story of the Lost Child (All reviews)

Jun 6 2016
Elena Ferrante, "The Story of the Lost Child"
— Once upon a reading
Apr 20 2016
Reader's Guide
— The Man Booker Prize
Apr 20 2016
Elena Ferrante and Clarice Lispector up for Best Translated Book award
— The Guardian
Apr 14 2016
The Man Booker International Prize 2016 Shortlist Announced
— The Man Booker Prize
Apr 14 2016
Ferrante, Pamuk shortlisted for Man Booker International Prize
— The Bookseller
Apr 14 2016
Elena Ferrante makes Man Booker International shortlist
— The Telegraph
Apr 14 2016
'Exhilarating' Man Booker International shortlist spans the world
— The Guardian
Apr 11 2016
2016 Independent Publisher Book Awards Results
— Independent Publisher
Apr 5 2016
The Story of the Lost Child Interview
— The Man Booker Prize
Mar 11 2016
My hero: Elena Ferrante by Margaret Drabble
— The Guardian
Jan 19 2016
Booklist Editors’ Choice: Adult Books, 2015.
— Booklist
Jan 5 2016
The 10 best books of 2015
— BBC
Dec 23 2015
The 10 Best Fiction Books
— Time
Dec 22 2015
Winners and losers: publishers pick the 2015 books they loved, missed and envied
— The Guardian
Dec 21 2015
Freight Staff and Authors Pick Favourite Reads of 2015
— Freight Books
Dec 18 2015
The Story of the Lost Child by Elena Ferrante
— Oldie
Dec 17 2015
Literary Fiction of the Year by Katy Guest: 'All this to savour – and then the thrill of a new Harper Lee, too'
— The Independent
Dec 17 2015
All booked up for Christmas
— The Daily Mail
Dec 17 2015
Times writers’ top picks of 2015
— The Times
Dec 17 2015
LITERARY HUB’S BEST BOOKS OF 2015
— Literary Hub
Dec 16 2015
Electric Literature’s Best Novels of 2015
— Electric Lit
Dec 14 2015
Minutes
— New Republic
Dec 9 2015
Best of the Best-of Lists
— The Wall Street Journal
Dec 9 2015
NPR Book Concierge: Guide to 2015’s Great Reads.
— NPR Books
Dec 9 2015
A Year in Reading: Matthew Salesses
— The Millions
Dec 8 2015
Best of 2015: Best Fiction Books
— Entropy
Dec 8 2015
Books of the year 2015
— Tiny Camels / Jonathan Gibbs
Dec 7 2015
Top 10 Fiction Books
— Time
Dec 6 2015
The Best 15 Books of 2015
— Book Culture
Dec 6 2015
The best novels of 2015
— The Guardian
Dec 6 2015
Take your pick of the year’s finest books
— The Sunday Times
Dec 4 2015
Shelf life - Best books of the year
— The Economist
Dec 3 2015
The 10 Best Books of 2015
— The New York Times
Dec 3 2015
The best fiction of 2015
— The Guardian
Dec 2 2015
The 24 Best Fiction Books Of 2015
— Buzzfeed
Nov 30 2015
Ferrante, Levi in top 100 New York Times
— Ansa
Nov 30 2015
The Story of the Lost Child by Elena Ferrante tr. Ann Goldstein
— Word by word
Nov 26 2015
The best translated fiction of 2015
— The Independent
Nov 24 2015
The 50 Best Independent Press Books of 2015
— Flavorwire
Nov 23 2015
Best 100 books for Christmas
— The Telegraph
Nov 19 2015
Notable fiction books of 2015
— The Washington Post
Nov 10 2015
Ferrante's Fourth Dazzles
— The Harvard Crimson
Nov 3 2015
The Story of the Lost Child – Elena Ferrante (2015) trans. Ann Goldstein
— Heavenali
Nov 2 2015
Best Books of 2015
— Publisher's Weekly
Oct 30 2015
Elena Ferrante Names the Devil and Slays the Minotaur
— The Millions
Oct 26 2015
The 15 Top New Books to Read for Fall 2015
— Patch of Earth
Oct 22 2015
The Story of The Lost Child – Elena Ferrante
— Lizzy’s Literary Life
Oct 21 2015
Staff picks: year’s best literary fiction
— The Guardian
Oct 21 2015
Indie Success Story
— Shelf-Awareness
Oct 19 2015
Something for the Week – Elena Ferrante
— Blackwell's
Oct 3 2015
A book that rattles like a pressure-cooker with anger, outrage, frustration and spleen
— The Spectator
Oct 3 2015
Searching Naples for Elena Ferrante
— The Daily Beast
Oct 2 2015
We don’t know Elena Ferrante – and that’s exactly why her success is so wonderful
— The Guardian
Sep 30 2015
"The Story Of The Lost Child" by Elena Ferrante
— RTE
Sep 28 2015
"Ferrante’s success has changed the perception of Europa Editions. My job now is to really push the whole list so that people who come to us by Ferrante stay with us."
— The Bookseller
Sep 28 2015
"Ferrante’s attention to the female body has been one of the great pleasures of her Neopolitan series..."
— New Republic
Sep 22 2015
“When the novel ends, it abruptly and dazzlingly reveals exactly how much change has accumulated over each successive round, leaving its readers to ask the same question as its narrator: How could we have possibly gone so far?”
— The Harvard Crimson
Sep 21 2015
"For Ferrante, the ability to exercise our own choices is of paramount importance and one that she takes very seriously."
— Scroll.in
Sep 21 2015
"The novel examines friendship, motherhood, politics, class conflict, and the project of writing..."
— The New Yorker
Sep 20 2015
“It takes a transcendent imagination to write a life that reads as if it actually happened, in our own world, and not too long ago. We're lucky to have one such imagination working now, that of Italian novelist Elena Ferrante.”
— Philadelphia Inquirer
Sep 20 2015
“It is the first work worthy of the Nobel prize to have come out of Italy for many decades.”
— The Observer
Sep 20 2015
"Ferrante’s books are bestsellers, sure, but they’re no 50 Shades of Grey. They are those unicorn commercial successes with profound literary merit."
— Quartz
Sep 19 2015
"Ferrante has written a book that feels as rich and layered as life itself."
— The Boston Globe
Sep 19 2015
Ann Goldstein discusses the Neapolitan novels with Sarah Kanowski on Australian radio.
— abc
Sep 19 2015
"The book series is a eulogy to ordinary peoples` lives, their differing aspirations and their desires to follow their instincts…even when these are questionable."
— Samsinclair Blog
Sep 17 2015
Aleksandar Hemon says “Most recently I’ve been enjoying Elena Ferrante, and not enjoying Knausgaard, but I spend a lot of time reading books in translation.”
— English Pen
Sep 17 2015
"The dark heart of friendship has rarely been anatomised in more pitiless detail."
— Evening Standard
Sep 16 2015
Guy Maddin refers to Ferrante as “the most exciting author he’s encountered in decades”.
— CBC Books
Sep 16 2015
"As in the rest of the series, Ferrante’s writing is spare, fierce, and meticulously detailed; as John Waters once quipped on Vine, she could be “the best angry woman writer ever”."
— The Georgia Straight
Sep 15 2015
“Ferrante’s astute political analysis of Italy’s many political and economic earthquakes from the 1950s to the present gives her novels a weight and significance beyond fiction.”
— European Literature Network
Sep 15 2015
Five Books Making the News This Week
— The Lit Hub
Sep 15 2015
"Ferrante’s voice is very much her own, but its force is communal. Perhaps her quartet should be seen as one of the first great works of post-authorial literature.”
— The Atlantic
Sep 14 2015
"Ferrante's Naples Quartet is anything but theater. It is the first genuine literary classic of the 21st century."
— The Huffington Post
Sep 13 2015
LOST CHILD is #7 on the Indie Bestseller List: Trade Paperback Nonfiction for the week ending September 13, 2015.
— Indie Bestseller
Sep 13 2015
“I don’t think I’ve read a more intelligent and imaginative work about contemporary women’s lives, nor one that articulates so bravely the difficulties inherent in such an enterprise.”
— In These Times
Sep 12 2015
"Fall Fiction and Nonfiction Suggestions"
— The Boston Globe
Sep 12 2015
"A bit of welcome relief from the testosterone-fuelled big beastery came in the form of The Story of the Lost Child, the final instalment of Elena Ferrante’s wildly popular quartet of Neapolitan novels."
— The Guardian
Sep 12 2015
"Still, it is worth battling through all four volumes of this strenuous saga to encounter Lila, and to observe a character evolving and enduring within a world she has chosen."
— The Irish Times
Sep 12 2015
"The emotional devastation is so intimately rendered that at times, as I read, I couldn’t breathe."
— The Independent (UK)
Sep 12 2015
"... the Italian writer is scathing about persistent speculation that she is in fact a well-known male writer (or, given the magnitude of her success, a cabal of well-known male writers)."
— The Australian
Sep 11 2015
"A shock of recognition rocked me when I read page 18. The heroine, Elena, who is angry and jealous of her best friend, Lila, destroys a box of eight notebooks Lila entrusted her with so her husband would not find them."
— Mirabile Dictu
Sep 11 2015
"There are tons of lessons women can learn from Ferrante's pages — and here are just seven of 'em:"
— Bustle
Sep 11 2015
"Ferrante deserves credit for setting her own terms and insisting that the focus remain on her work. Jonathan Franzen should be so lucky."
— NY Times
Sep 10 2015
Bustle: 6 Lessons On Female Friendship That I Learned As A Man, Straight From Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan Novels
— Bustle
Sep 10 2015
Maureen Corrigan calls THE STORY OF THE LOST CHILD "spectacular" and reminds us that, in order to experience the "perfect devastation" of this finale, it's best to start from the very beginning.
— NPR
Sep 10 2015
THE STORY OF THE LOST CHILD
— Hollywood Reporter's Fall Book Preview
Sep 10 2015
"Rather than mourning the loss of Ferrante’s exquisite Neapolitan novels, I marvel at achievement in bringing them to life. And the coda at the end of the epic tale of Lila and Elena has stayed with me for days."
— The Artery
Sep 10 2015
Margaret Drabble calls LOST CHILD "a triumphant, satisfying, baffling and unsettling conclusion."
— New Statesman
Sep 9 2015
Brooklyn Magazine calls LOST CHILD “The Best Book to Weep to on the Subway.”
— Brooklyn Magazine
Sep 9 2015
"Romantic and family saga, a Bildungsroman, a portrait of a society, the series is also not quite any of these things."
— The Times Literary Supplement
Sep 9 2015
"Women are made into universal heroes, without an ounce of pity, shame or excuse."
— Macleans
Sep 8 2015
"The complete series, which runs now to well over 1,500 pages, is reminiscent of the vast novel of the 19th century..."
— Book Reporter
Sep 7 2015
'Ferrante Fever' Exists for a Reason
— Broadly
Sep 7 2015
Podcast
— The Guardian
Sep 6 2015
"Successfully Absent: Elena Ferrante’s Italian Books"
— The Conversation (Australia)
Sep 6 2015
"A Foreign Affair: Best new world fiction translations."
— Daily Express
Sep 5 2015
"New in Paper"
— Winnipeg Free Press (Canada)
Sep 5 2015
"To read Ferrante is to be immersed in an entire world, subject to its violence and passions, its hopes and frustrations; readers will likely find it difficult to close The Story of the Lost Child for the last time, to consign that world to memo"
— The Star
Sep 4 2015
"Ferrante's novels are immersive, each and all together a world, one sliding into the next as characters and events mirror one another."
— WA Today (Australia)
Sep 4 2015
Melanie Mitchell recommends THE STORY OF THE LOST CHILD
— The News
Sep 4 2015
"In her inimitable style (expertly rendered, as always, by translator Ann Goldstein), Ferrante examines feminine identity within and without the context of marriage, motherhood, and vocation."
— Entertainment Weekly
Sep 3 2015
"15 Books to Read This Fall"
— Wall Street Journal
Sep 3 2015
"... THE STORY OF THE LOST CHILD is the fourth and final one of her magnificent Neapolitan quartet, a sequence which now seems to me, at least within all that I've read, to be the greatest achievement in fiction of the post-war era."
— Chicago Tribune
Sep 3 2015
Kirsty Lang discusses Elena Ferrante and the Neapolitan series on BBC Radio’s feature “Front Row.”
— BBC
Sep 3 2015
"Ms. Ferrante’s Neapolitan quartet is utterly distinctive, immersing us not just in a time and place, but deep within the psychological consciousness of its narrator."
— The New York Times
Sep 3 2015
"Like Anna Karenina, Lila and Elena are volatile, full of desire and rage. They too break domestic conventions, but it thrills me that instead of killing them off, Ferrante allows them, in all their chaos and pain, to thrive."
— Los Angeles Times
Sep 3 2015
What to do this weekend?
— New York Times
Sep 3 2015
"A portrait of the dynamic of a friendship has mutated into a weightier, more uncanny exploration of the antipathy of love, of our compulsion to create one another, over and over again."
— The Guardian
Sep 3 2015
"The truth is that even the publishing industry and the media are convinced of this commonplace; both tend to shut women who write away in a literary gynaeceum."
— The Pool
Sep 3 2015
Aaron Brady on The Lit Hub: "Her work is reminiscent of a Neapolitan theatrical tradition called sceneggiata, a kind of over-the-top musical melodrama about honour, betrayal and crime…"
— The Lit Hub
Sep 3 2015
"Her subtle and sensuous depiction of Lenu’s and Lila’s world leads to a totally immersive reading experience – you feel the street dust on your face, the sand between your toes, you can smell the stench of sausage meat."
— OpenDemocracy.net
Sep 3 2015
"Ferrante’s masterworks take us close enough to see not just the colour, but the filth and mud as well."
— The National
Sep 3 2015
"3 Big Reasons The Neapolitan Novels Are The Greatest Modern Series"
— Bustle
Sep 3 2015
THE STORY OF THE LOST CHILD tops the list of “Editors’ Choice” Books in the September 6 issue of the New York Times Book Review.
— New York Times Book Review
Sep 2 2015
"Has any fiction in the past ten years had a bigger impact?"
— Vogue.com
Sep 2 2015
"The books are full of blood – menstrual as well as that spilled through violence – and the women are as awful to each other as the men are to them..."
— Tiny Camels
Sep 2 2015
"This was a party, in the tradition established by the Harry Potter series, for books whose fan bases have become ravenous."
— The New Yorker
Sep 2 2015
"Ferrante challenges our ideas about the act of writing itself, so that we are left wondering if a writer’s work always and inevitably contains traces of the words and stories of others that came before it."
— The Atlantic
Sep 2 2015
"Ferrante, the Classics scholar, has written a Greek tragedy with Lila as its heroine."
— Los Angeles Review of Books
Sep 2 2015
"The prose is spare, emotionally resonant — and completely addictive."
— New York Post
Sep 2 2015
"The city itself is a character in all her novels, including the popular four-book series that begins with My Brilliant Friend, about best friends growing up in the 1950s, and ends with The Story of the Lost Child, released in English this week."
— CityLab
Sep 2 2015
"Ferrante added that when a woman’s writing falls outside the categories that have been assigned to women, particularly when there is no author photo of a woman provided, then the immediate jump to the writer’s identity being male is made."
— The Guardian
Sep 2 2015
"It’s a satisfying conclusion to Ferrante’s modern masterpiece."
— Bustle’s 13 of Fall’s Best Books to Read All Season
Sep 2 2015
Women’s Voices for Change’s “Wednesday five”: #1 THE STORY OF THE LOST CHILD
— Women’s Voices for Change
Sep 2 2015
"12 Of The Most Feminist Moments In Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan Novels"
— Bustle
Sep 2 2015
"The fourth and final installment wraps up the tale of friendship, class struggle, political upheaval and the search for identity that has hooked so many readers over the four years since the first volume was published in Italy."
— Bustle
Sep 1 2015
"Reading Ferrante is like holding one of those hearts, without ever understanding what brought it to life in the first place."
— Open Letters Monthly
Sep 1 2015
"21 Must-Read Fall Books"
— Kirkus
Sep 1 2015
"It’s the bristling, uncompromising, messy humanity of Ferrante’s characters that make them so vivid."
— The Barnes and Noble Review
Sep 1 2015
"The symbolic open-endedness of The Story of The Lost Child makes the series into something of a circle, a cycle, rather than a linear tale. It’s a stunning feat to contemplate, while also being riveting to read.”
— Flavorwire
Sep 1 2015
A Love Letter To Elena Ferrante, Whoever She May Be: "Anonymity is a powerful thing in the age of the personal brand."
— The Huffington Post
Sep 1 2015
"If you only read four books this year, then make it these."
— The Stylist's Best New Books of September
Sep 1 2015
"It is the exploration of the women’s mental underworld that makes the book so singular an achievement in feminist literature; indeed, in all literature."
— The New Yorker
Sep 1 2015
"5 Reasons To Love Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels With All Your Feminist Heart"
— Bust
Sep 1 2015
THE STORY OF THE LOST CHILD
— Vol.1 Brooklyn’s September 2015 Books Preview
Sep 1 2015
17 Of September 2015's Best Books: #1 THE STORY OF THE LOST CHILD
— Bustle
Sep 1 2015
"Unlike most books of a breathtaking nature, these are beautifully wrought, with layered and intricate characters acting in extreme, but believable ways."
— Heavy Feather Review
Sep 1 2015
"Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels are astonishing modern classics"
— Vox
Sep 1 2015
Falvorwire's 33 Must-Read Books for Fall 2015: THE STORY OF THE LOST CHILD
— Flavorwire
Sep 1 2015
Lit Hub's Five Books Making News This Week: THE STORY OF THE LOST CHILD
— The Lit Hub
Sep 1 2015
"But that’s exactly how this series should end: not with the sudden realization of who we can be, but with the awful truth of who we are."
— Fusion
Sep 1 2015
THE STORY OF THE LOST CHILD featured on Amazon's Best Books of the Month!
— Amazon's Best Books of the Month
Aug 31 2015
"A Writer Who Makes Her Voice Heard Around the World: Elena Ferrante’s brilliant, angry, honest series of novels"
— Kirkus
Aug 31 2015
"Insightful examination and mini history of Naples, modern Italian history and politics, feminism, and class issues."
— NY Journal of Books
Aug 31 2015
"For my mom and me—who, like all mothers and daughters, sometimes have a difficult relationship—the novels have given us a way to stay in closer touch and a subject to return to and discuss."
— Slate
Aug 31 2015
"Part of the rich flavor of these books comes from Ferrante’s skillful blending of the familiar motifs of commercial fiction with an elevated style and a refusal to stoop to sentimental reassurances and easily likable characters."
— Slate
Aug 31 2015
"But with work this unusual and brilliant, there is no way to stop us from focusing on so prodigiously gifted a storyteller."
— Newsday
Aug 31 2015
"As a whole the Neapolitan Novels are a wonderful achievement, and the fourth book provides a fitting end to a enthralling series."
— Tony's Reading List
Aug 30 2015
Elena Ferrante Speaks: “The Books are Enough”
— Publishing Perspectives
Aug 29 2015
"Yet it is Ms Ferrante’s ability to serve up scorching emotional truth that gives the books their raw power."
— The Economist
Aug 28 2015
"To imbue fiction with the undiluted energy of life — to make of it not just words upon a page but a visceral force — is the greatest artistic achievement, worth more than any pretty sentences..."
— The Financial Times
Aug 28 2015
"This stunning conclusion further solidifies the Neapolitan novels as Ferrante's masterpiece and guarantees that this reclusive author will remain far from obscure for years to come."
— Publishers Weekly
Aug 28 2015
Brow Beat Slate's Culture Blog: "Dressing a Refined Story With a Touch of Vulgarity": An Interview With Elena Ferrante’s Art Director
— Slate
Aug 28 2015
"These ferocious and necessary novels offer so many varieties of pleasure: They are political, intellectual and emotionally gripping at the same time. They draw a portrait of Western society in blood."
— Globe and Mail
Aug 28 2015
"This is Ferrante at the height of her brilliance."
— Vanity Fair
Aug 27 2015
BBC Ten Books to Read in September: "This concluding volume, translated into English by Ann Goldstein, proves, once again, as Ferrante puts it: “Every intense relationship between human beings is full of traps.”"
— BBC
Aug 27 2015
"Learning from the multivolume sagaists who have preceded her, she shows much skill in writing those enormous histories into this narrative about two grown women choosing the paths their adult lives should take."
— SFGate
Aug 27 2015
"[...] it is in the passages when Ferrante explores the liminal states of Lila’s consciousness that the writing transcends itself."
— The Independent (UK)
Aug 27 2015
"A Brief Guide to Elena Ferrante with Joanna Walsh" Vlog
— London Review Bookshop
Aug 27 2015
Vulture's 46 Books to Read this Fall: #2 THE STORY OF THE LOST CHILD
— Vulture
Aug 26 2015
"With her new novel, “The Story of the Lost Child,” Ferrante has written what I’d call a “city book,” a knowing and complex tale that encompasses an entire metropolis."
— The Washington Post
Aug 26 2015
"With this shift into a psychological paradigm, Ferrante implies much about the stubbornly cyclical nature of female evolution."
— The New York Times
Aug 24 2015
"As Ferrante suggests, the book should surely be enough, though that is sadly not the reality for many pressured to deliver a performance after they have delivered their novel."
— The Independent
Aug 24 2015
Amazon’s Fall Books Preview: Editors Fall Favorites: #5 THE STORY OF THE LOST CHILD
— Amazon’s Fall Books Preview
Aug 22 2015
"The Story of the Lost Child does not offer a comfortable end to the series, but it confirms Ferrante – once again – as one of contemporary fiction’s most compelling voices.”
— The Telegraph
Aug 21 2015
Previously on the Neapolitan Novels: Your Study Guide to Elena Ferrante
— Electric Lit
Aug 21 2015
"Elena Ferrante’s ‘The Story Of The Lost Child’ Is Coming, So Here’s What You Need To Remember Before You Start The Fourth Book"
— Bustle:
Aug 19 2015
Amazon's 20 favorite fall book picks
— CNN
Aug 19 2015
"#FerranteFever Is Sweeping Social Media! Here's How To Enter The 'Story Of The Lost Child' Contest"
— Bustle
Aug 14 2015
"When is Elena Ferrante’s New Book Coming Out?"
— Bustle
Aug 14 2015
"The concluding novel of the Neapolitan quartet perfectly completes the saga of two women's 66-year friendship in a rough neighborhood of Naples."
— Shelf Awareness
Aug 13 2015
Evening Standard Magazine’s list "#longreads: the supersized books of summer 2015."
— Evening Standard Magazine
Aug 11 2015
30 blockbuster novels to look out for this fall: THE STORY OF THE LOST CHILD
— Entertainment Weekly
Aug 11 2015
John Waters, Billy Connolly, Marina Endicott on their Summer Reads: John Waters picks THE STORY OF THE LOST CHILD
Aug 1 2015
Reading Groups for Everyone Staff Picks: THE STORY OF THE LOST CHILD
Jul 30 2015
THE STORY OF THE LOST CHILD was included in Publishers Weekly list of “The Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2015.”
— Publishers Weekly
Jul 30 2015
Buzzfeed's "35 Books You Should Read this Summer": THE STORY OF THE LOST CHILD
— Buzzfeed
Jul 11 2015
The Guardian's Best Holiday Reads
— The Guardian
Jul 6 2015
Most Anticipated: The Great Second-Half 2015 Book Preview
— The Millions
Jun 23 2015
"It's a Naples whodunnit: novelist hotly tipped to win Italy’s Strega prize has kept her identity a secret for more than 20 years to preserve her ‘flesh and blood’"
— The Guardian
Jun 12 2015
The Independent’s Recommended Summer Reading: "The writing is fearless, immersive, recounts frankly all human experience, emphatically that which seems unsayable."
— The Independent
Jun 3 2015
"The enigmatic Ferrante..has created a mythic portrait of a female friendship."
— Kirkus Starred Review
May 28 2015
"This stunning conclusion further solidifies the Neapolitan novels as Ferrante's masterpiece and guarantees that this reclusive author will remain far from obscure for years to come."
— Publisher's Weekly Starred Review