My Brilliant Friend (Neapolitan Novels, #1)

“She was the one who was supposed to be bad, and I the one who was supposed to be good.”

Lila and Lenu are constantly competing even when they love each other. It shows how friendship can be a race where you secretly hope your friend trips.

“We lived in a world where children and adults were often wounded.”

The neighborhood felt like a cage they were both trying to pick the lock of. One used books and the other used her own sharp mind.

Education was the only way out of that violent poverty. Lenu got to keep going but Lila had to stay and work in the shop.

“The men were the masters of the neighborhood.”

Men in their town were mostly just a source of noise and danger. The girls had to navigate around them like they were landmines.