fire. The novel ends when Lenù is a in a bookstore presenting her book. She is attacked by a journalist, who calls the book obscene. To her surprise, an audience member starts to deffend her, and she recognizes him as Nino Sarratore. Characters Elena Greco (Lenù or Lenuccia), the protagonist and main character. She finishes high school in Naples as the first person of her family to do so, and goes to university in the Scuola Normale di Pisa. After graduating, she published a novel. Raffaella Cerullo (Lila or Lina), married at the age of sixteen to Stefano Carraci. She has an affair with Nino Sarratore, who leaves her when she is pregnant. She goes back to Carraci, who refuses to believe that the child is not his. She finally leaves her husband, after years of domestiv violence, to live with her childhood friend Enzo, and her son Rino. Stefano Carracci, Lila's violent husband and owner of a growing business. Giovanni Sarratore (Nino), son of Donato Sarratore. He starts an affair with Lila while she is married to Stefano. Giuseppina Carracci (Pinuccia), sister to Stefano, she becomes pregant by Rino and marries him during the novel. Gennaro Cerullo (Rino), Lila's older brother and Pinuccia's husband. He becomes obsessed by the idea of becoming wealthy. Reception The book was well received by the critic. Joseph Luzzi, writing for The New York Times, comments "Elena Ferrante is this rare bird: so deliberate in building up her story that you almost give up on it, so gifted that by the end she has you in tears." Critics have praised the diversity of tones in the book, that goes from the "sweetness and beauty" of the moments in Ischia, the "the intensity of youthful romance", to "the fate of women in a masculine society". Joanna Walsh, notes for The Guardian:Behind the Neapolitan novels is a sense of "the violence in every house, every family" based in an unspeakable "before": the brutality and betrayals of the second world war. Lenú, brought up speaking not Italian, but Neapolitan, becomes fluent in the language of schoolbooks. When "language itself in fact, had become a mark of alienation" she leaves the city for university. Groped on a bus, Lenú reverts to dialect: "I said unrepeatable words … what was the use of years of middle school, high school, university, in that city?" References 2012 novels 21st-century Italian novels