20 Books for Fans of HBO’s My Brilliant Friend

Hailed as “the literary event of the year” by ELLE Magazine, Elena Ferrante’s first new novel following her Neapolitan saga takes us once more to the divided city of Naples, where a young woman is coming of age and looking for answers. 

It’s a perfect place to go once you’ve run out of Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels, and a reminder of why the author was named one of the world’s 100 most influential people by Time magazine, and is often considered a likely future Nobel laureate, with BookPage raving that “Ferrante’s ability to draw in her readers remains unparalleled.”

“A richly layered study that will appeal to the well-versed fan” (Kirkus Reviews), Elena Ferrante’s Key Words is a guide to the author’s work by one of the most celebrated of Ferrante critics and scholars. In fact, the author herself has said that, “Often I think that she knows my books better than I do. So, I read her with admiration and remain silent.” 

For those who want a deeper dive into the works of Elena Ferrante, this “exceptional companion to the source material” (Library Journal) is a must read and a perfect place to learn more about Ferrante, her themes and preoccupations, and her massive worldwide success.

In Iwaki Kei’s novel, two women find strength through challenging times in their newly formed friendship. Salimah, a single mother of two, has just moved her family to Australia from their native country of Nigeria. When Salimah signs up for a local ESL class, she meets Sayuri, a research assistant at the university who came to Australia from Japan with her husband and their infant daughter. 

As the women face hardships and loss, they learn to depend on each other to overcome adversities in their new environment.

Winner of the prestigious Premio Viareggio in its native Italy, Neapolitan Chronicles has been hailed as a “masterpiece” (Public Books) from one of Italy’s most celebrated writers. It’s also a “major inspiration for Elena Ferrante” (New York Times), something the author herself has acknowledged. 

In a “literary gem that reaches beyond post-war Naples to explore timeless human struggles and the ethical responsibility of opening one’s eyes” (Times Literary Supplement), this collection of short stories and essays “infuse a grimy, chaotic Naples with unsentimental menace rather than romantic mystique” (New Yorker).

Mary and Blaise are a young English couple traveling to India to celebrate their honeymoon. They choose to stay at Patna Hall, a popular destination for vacationers on the Coromandel coast, owned by the wise and lovely Auntie Sanni. 

With an election happening soon the hotel is packed, and Mary finds herself marveling at Indian life and its politics. When Mary meets local politician Krishnan, tensions and problems between the newlyweds intensify. 

Auntie Sanni has always been able to entertain and give her guests perfection, but in this trying climate even she is unsure she can keep the peace.

Named a Best Book of the Year by Kirkus Reviews, the Washington Post, and others, this Campiello Prize-winning novel from a star of the Italian literary world follows a young girl sent unexpectedly away from the family she has always known to live with her very different birth family. 

The result is “spellbinding” (Publishers Weekly), a “captivating tale about the trials of settling down, fitting in and battling on amid emotional upheaval” (The Economist) that is “immensely readable, beautifully written, and highly recommended” (Kirkus Reviews).

In Yoshimoto’s novel, the complicated friendship of cousins Maria and Tsugumi is tested as they face reality. Maria and her mother are soon to leave their seaside hometown for Tokyo to be with her father, and the cousins are to spend one final summer by the sea together. 

However, with this change looming over them, Maria prepares for her new life of going to university, meeting adulthood, and having a “traditional” family while Tsugumi discovers her own strength and potential along with love. 

With Goodbye Tsugumi, Yoshimoto shows the extraordinary talent of one of modern Japan’s finest writers.

“Both an engrossing narrative and an impassioned testimony to the people of Chile” (Publishers Weekly), The House of Spirits introduces readers to an important new voice in Latin American fiction in the form of Isabel Allende and her story of three generations within the Trueba family. 

Read it to see why Cosmopolitan raves that “there are few trips more thrilling than those taken in the imagination of a brilliant novelist […] the characters, their joys and their anguish, could not be more contemporary or immediate.”

Author Julie Shigekuni weaves together the coming of age stories of four women all living through the after-affects of internment camps in California. 

A community bound together by pain and a pressure to assimilate to their oppressor’s culture has shaped these women’s lives and have given them ideas of what life “should look like.” Nora, being raised a devout Catholic, experiences sexual intimacy for the first time and then mysteriously disappears. 

Her only friends, Caroline and Melissa, are then forced to decide just how much they can sacrifice in order to find Nora.

The sixth novel from Nordic Council Literature Prize-winning author Audur Ava Olafsdottir, Miss Iceland follows Hekla, a would-be writer who journeys to Reykjavik hoping to find her future, only to struggle against a conservative world of sexism, homophobia, and more. 

“As elegantly cold and foreboding as the Icelandic landscape itself, Olafsdottir’s languid and melancholy portrait of a writer with a singular passion demonstrates the sacrifices women have always made for their art” (Booklist), and paints an “absorbing, bittersweet tale” (The Economist) that readers won’t soon forget.

We meet characters Billie and Franck trapped in the Cévennes National Park of France. Franck is injured, and with nightfall approaching Billie recounts stories of the life they have shared and how their family came to be. 

Billie, originally from an abusive household, does anything to get away, as does Franck who faces judgement and bigotry from both his father and peers. Upon first meeting, Billie and Franck become each other’s chosen family and stay through the good and the bad. 

Translated into more than twenty-five languages, Billie is a beautifully crafted novel that conveys a positive message about overcoming life’s trials.

“This book is very likely to make you cry,” raves Lily Meyer at NPR, while Kirkus Reviews calls it an “unexpected classic,” in which the acclaimed Japanese author “takes on another subject seldom tapped in literary fiction and blows it open with raw and eloquent intensity.” 

At the center of Heaven are two middle school students, each the subject of vicious, dehumanizing bullying. Can their relationship help them both survive, and maybe guide them toward greater understanding of themselves? “The author moves toward an answer in this quietly devastating tale of middle school drama,” according to Time Magazine.

From PEN/Faulkner Award-winning author Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi comes “a novel of ideas […] steeped in sex and haunted by fleshy frights” (Washington Post) that follows the fallout of a propulsive, mercurial, and ultimately catastrophic affair, taking a “pulls-no-punches look at abandonment, ownership, trauma, and the convergence of political and personal pain” (Lit Hub). 

When Arezu returns to Spain, to the site of some of her most traumatic and conflicted memories, she must face her own past in this “compulsive” novel that “explores questions surrounding sexuality, agency, and displacement” (A.V. Club).

Found 40 years after Pearl S. Buck’s death, this coming of age story follows a gifted man Rann and his worldwide travels in search of purpose. The goal is to combine his extraordinary intellect with the world around him. 

In Paris, Rann meets Stephanie Kung, a young, intelligent woman living with her Chinese father. Stephanie has no contact with her American mother, yet her mixed heritage creates alienation and loneliness for Stephanie. 

Both Rann and Stephanie search for their sense of identity and face long periods of separation until a final reconciliation that ends in a way no one expects.

O, The Oprah Magazine raves that this “enigmatic tale of adolescent friendship” in pre-tech boom San Francisco is “smart, sly, and as knowing about the mind and heart of a teenage girl as an Elena Ferrante novel.” What more could a fan of My Brilliant Friend need to hear? 

Eulabee and her friends have their run of their Sea Cliff neighborhood – until they witness something dangerous… or do they? As the girls disagree about what happened, schisms within their friendship may lead to much more serious fallout in this “detailed and vibrant” (Los Angeles Review of Books) coming of age novel.

“A beautifully written novel about life in the U.S. experienced by an immigrant” (The Maggie Linton Show), Amy’s Story sprawls across the background of decades of American history, from the 1960s to 2011, as it tells the story of two women across two continents, and how their lives intersect with the trials and tribulations that have gripped the nation in the past half-century. 

“Anna Lawton’s ear for dialogue is spot on” raves the San Francisco Book Review, while NPR hails this novel of an Italian immigrant’s life in America is one that is “woven together quite expertly.”

Sandra and Martha spark a friendship by chance. Sandra is relearning to face the world after the death of her husband. She is a tough and intelligent woman but struggles with the new reality of being alone. 

Martha, a self-taught textile artist, is Sandra’s opposite, passing her time knitting beautiful and intricate pieces full of hidden personal meaning. Both women learn to face their adversities by collaborating and depending on their newfound friendship. 

“In the tradition of Anita Brookner and Barbara Pym, Anne Bartlett has written a sly, stirring look at women’s lives” (Meg Wolitzer, author of The Female Persuasion).

This novel follows the stories of three Cambridge-educated women and the challenges they face in Margaret Thatcher’s England. 

As one woman’s social work forces her to befriend a convicted murderer, another finds herself involved in a strange affair after a husband’s suicide, and the third must rescue a friend kidnapped by terrorists. Their intertwined obstacles force them to find strength, justice, and freedom.

“[Drabble] invites us to see beyond the filth and horror of modern life to the world of possibilities in our own lives, where we also have the power to write our own endings.” —Winnipeg Free Press

Stacey Donovan’s poignant young adult LGBT novel explores the rawness of life’s most difficult obstacles: death, family, friends, love, and betrayal. 

Virginia “V” Dunn’s entire world turns upside down after a hit-and-run leaves her beloved dog injured. Her best friend begins ignoring her, her mother’s drinking worsens, and her father suddenly becomes ill. 

V feels completely alone until she meets Jane. Jane’s ability to enchant V and turn her away from all she knows leads V to a realization of who she truly is. This complex and lyrical coming-of-age novel portrays the messiness of teenage life as V learns to confront her problems.

In this family saga, Elvira Vernet narrates her journey to discovering the truth of her parents and their family. Her mother, Clarissa Rivas de Santillana, was born into a life of wealth and privilege. Her father, Aurelio Vernet, was raised by a Cuban immigrant in an extremely strict household. 

As Puerto Rico fights for independence, Aurelio finds himself in a position of political power. The family begins to face issues of violence, infidelity, and sacrifice. 

A “colorful family saga” set against the dramatic historical backdrop of twentieth-century Puerto Rico, from an author nominated for the National Book Award (Kirkus Reviews).