The Story of a New Name

Book 2. Late adolescence for the two girls. A friendship that's loving yet also toxic. How competition between friends is what drives them to success yet also provides so much ugliness and pain. Some of the scenes surprised me, how they seemed to rise above the else rather impartial narration. When Lina and Nino spend day+night together and Elena is tormented by it and her use of explicit language demonstrates her pain. Her recount of what happens on the beach with Nino's father, heartbreaking as in the moment she does not grasp it yet the shame hits her months/years later. And one of the most beautiful and touching moments, put into a sentence: “I was I, I, I.”