The final Neapolitan book and I'm a bit sad to see the journey ended. I'm not sure I've ever read a book that delved so intimately into a friendship and related the story in all of its complicated, devoted and at times ugly existence. Stripped of any pretension on the author's part, the reader is immersed into the undiluted world of Elena Greco and Raffaella Cerullo. This fourth book follows their lives from early 40s into old age. 
 Along with Lenu and Lila, Ferrante has managed to keep us in the lives of every character from the village since the first book and not in a superficial update sort of way. We come to understand their interconnected and complicated lives as well. Yet another layer of the story telling was Ferrante's ability to relate all of these lives through the political and social changes happening in Italy throughout the years. 
 The ending pages are somewhat heartbreaking and discouraging (Ferrante pulls no punches here either) and yet I respect them all the more for that. When you are speaking of people's lives, there is never really an "end" to their stories. We can only reflect on what we've known of them and relate to them according to our own personal intimacy and experience. Those relationships are what make us humans complete - not the person alone. That is what I will take away most from this quartet of staggering books.