Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay by Elena Ferrante

This is the third novel in the Neopolitan Diaries and I loved it....for the most part. There were sections that were a bit slow for me, but overall, you get a great sense of how Lina and Lenu evolve over time and become themselves.

The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante

I have Ferrante Fever!  Just finished Book #2 and now MUST read Book #3. I think I liked the second book more than the first, but it also made me want to go back and re-read My Brilliant Friend. I had no idea on how dependent the books are on each other. Usually in a series, the author doesn't require the reader to know much about the prior books and will fill in the details of the story. Not true here!
In the first book I got so many of the characters, other than Lila and Lenu mixed up. That continued for a point in in this book, but it started becoming more and more clear who the "important" characters are and how they are all interconnected and interrelated.

This paragraph from the New York Times defines the special realationship of these two characters very well:

The novel begins with Elena throwing Lila’s notebooks into the Arno after Lila has entrusted her lifetime of writing to her best friend. About to publish a novel and graduate from Pisa’s prestigious Scuola Normale Superiore, 22-year-old Elena can’t bear to read of Lila’s love affair with Nino Sarratore, the young man she believes Lila stole from her. But the act of sabotage has deeper, darker roots. Elena has always feared that Lila, although poorly educated and stuck in Naples, is more brilliant than she, that Lila is the real writer. These two love each other ferociously, but each burns with a desire to outdo the other, sometimes killing what is best in her soul mate.