My brilliant friend

For a story told and retold via a cult series and its successful TV adaptation, the creators of this graphic-novel version of book 1 of Ferrante's Neapolitan quartet manage to hew to the source material while offering something original. The ultraqualified team is made up of Lagani, who adapted the Neapolitan novels for the stage; Cerri, illustrator of Ferrante's creepy picture book The Beach at Night (2016); and Goldstein, translator of all of Ferrante's works into English. Rich twilight blues and artificially lit, darkened interiors dominate the Naples neighborhood of young Lenù and Lila; sun and blue skies are rare. Minimal text and dialogue might make readers who start here feel lost at times, but those who know the story that the adult Lenù narrates will see scenes and feelings captured truly in these varied and layered images, which seem forcefully put down on old, textured paper. One memorable and provocative spread shows sketches of the girls on opposite pages, naked, their body parts labeled as Lenù sees them--and all hers falling short in comparison. Both unique and uniquely devastating, this entry in the Ferrante-verse will almost certainly find an enthused audience.

Based on Ferrante's 2011 bestseller, this impressive graphic novel adaptation recalibrates the original story line of fraught friendship in post-WWII Italy with sensitive, buoyant drawings and economic yet powerful narration. Elena "Lenù" Greco and Raffaella "Lila" Cerullo grow up together in poverty and amid violence in 1950s Naples. Both girls show academic aptitude and ambition, especially Lila, who teaches herself to read and write. But only Lenù's parents allow her to continue in school. She feels torn with pity, shame, and jealousy, believing Lila is "always one step ahead." Meanwhile, Lila is pursued by nearly every man in town. The adaptation delicately, and sometimes more brazenly, captures the charge between the two, with a brilliant deep blue suddenly appearing or disappearing in emotionally charged sections. For instance, when Lila asks Lenù to swear they will "never leave each other," the story turns to pages of wordless images depicting explosive fireworks in various blue hues. The colorful and lucid sketches crackle on the page. This adaptation exquisitely captures Ferrante's story of a passionate and consuming friendship. (Oct.)

Ferrante's now-classic saga of an enduring yet complex female friendship shape-shifts once again, this time into a graphic novel. In Lagani's streamlined adaptation of the first of four Neapolitan novels, Ferrante's original narrator, Lenù, does double duty as the (fictional) illustrator of the early years in her complicated lifelong friendship with Lila. "Her" drawings, maps, and illustrations trace the girls' relationship from childhood through Lila's marriage. Cerri, the actual illustrator, captures the girls' environments and moods in gestural, atmospheric drawings that convey the menacing atmosphere of postwar Naples as well as the girls' determination to move beyond the boundaries imposed on them by family, culture, and economic circumstance. This re-envisioned account necessarily telescopes some backstory and motivation but remains faithful to the broad outlines of the character development and Byzantine plot points found in the original. Readers unfamiliar with the works underlying this iteration of the story--Ferrante's original books and the hit HBO miniseries from which Cerri drew visual inspiration--may find some incidents puzzling to parse, such as schoolgirl Lila's apparent fall from an apartment window. (Ferrante's legion of devoted fans will connect the dots between her father's anger and Lila's ejection from the window.) Aspects of the narrative that benefit from Cerri's visual storytelling include the first episode of "dissolving boundaries" that will plague Lila throughout her life and Lenù's competitive concerns about the differences between the girls' maturing adolescent bodies. (Cerri previously illustrated Ferrante's earlier "picture book," the mordant The Beach at Night, but delivers less nightmarish visions here.) Goldstein, responsible for translating Ferrante's prior works from Italian into English, continues that heroic undertaking with a sensitive translation of Lagani's text consistent with the original. Classics often pale in their retelling, but this homage to Ferrante's epic shines with its own light. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.