--- product_id: 5678457 title: "Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay: A Novel (Neapolitan Novels, 3)" price: "AR$77114" currency: ARS in_stock: true reviews_count: 13 url: https://www.desertcart.com.ar/products/5678457-those-who-leave-and-those-who-stay-a-novel-neapolitan store_origin: AR region: Argentina --- # Set in transformative 1970s Italy 3rd book in acclaimed Neapolitan series Themes of female empowerment & education Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay: A Novel (Neapolitan Novels, 3) **Price:** AR$77114 **Availability:** ✅ In Stock ## Summary > 📖 Unlock the fierce, unbreakable bond of friendship and ambition in a world on the brink of change. ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay: A Novel (Neapolitan Novels, 3) - **How much does it cost?** AR$77114 with free shipping - **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.com.ar](https://www.desertcart.com.ar/products/5678457-those-who-leave-and-those-who-stay-a-novel-neapolitan) ## Best For - Customers looking for quality international products ## Why This Product - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Key Features - • **Cultural Time Capsule:** Experience the vibrant social and political shifts of 1970s Italy through richly detailed storytelling. - • **Thought-Provoking Themes:** Engage with powerful reflections on feminism, class struggle, and personal growth that resonate with today’s professional women. - • **Award-Winning Inspiration:** Inspired the critically acclaimed HBO series 'My Brilliant Friend'—join the global conversation everyone’s buzzing about. - • **Complex Female Friendships:** Explore the nuanced, evolving bond between two women navigating divergent life paths and societal expectations. - • **Epic Literary Continuation:** Dive into the third installment of the bestselling Neapolitan Novels saga, continuing the gripping journey of Elena and Lila. ## Overview Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay is the third novel in Elena Ferrante’s bestselling Neapolitan series, set in 1970s Naples. It follows childhood friends Elena and Lila as they confront societal constraints and personal challenges, highlighting themes of female empowerment, friendship, and cultural transformation. Praised for its rich character development and vivid portrayal of a pivotal era, this novel inspired the HBO hit 'My Brilliant Friend' and continues to captivate readers worldwide. ## Description Part of the bestselling saga about childhood friends following different paths by “one of the great novelists of our time” ( The New York Times ). In the third book in the New York Times –bestselling Neapolitan quartet that inspired the HBO series My Brilliant Friend , Elena and Lila have grown into womanhood. Lila married at sixteen and has a young son; she has left her husband and the comforts her marriage brought and now works as a common laborer. Elena has left the neighborhood, earned her college degree, and published a successful novel, all of which has opened the doors to a world of learned interlocutors and richly furnished salons. Both women are pushing against the walls of a prison that would have seen them living a life of misery, ignorance, and submission. They are afloat on the great sea of opportunities that opened up for women during the 1970s. And yet, they are still very much bound to each other in a book that “shows off Ferrante’s strong storytelling ability and will leave readers eager for the final volume of the series” ( Library Journal ). “One of modern fiction’s richest portraits of a friendship.” ― NPR Review: I can't remember when I have been so completely taken with a series of novels as I have been with these beautifully written and - Those Who Leave is the third book in the author's "Neapolitan Novels" (with the fourth, The Story of the Lost Child, scheduled for publication in the U.S. in September 2015) and it is as gripping and enthralling as the first two. The series is set in a somewhat insular neighborhood of Naples. It is now the late 1960s and 1970s and the two main characters, whose friendship constitutes the center of the books, are now somewhat estranged as their lives have grown complicated and divergent. Still living in Naples, Lina has separated from her husband and is raising her young son while Elena has graduated from college and published a novel. But the actually events of the narrative are not the author's primary concern. Rather, it is the internal life of the two characters and how their own idiosyncratic reactions provide a shape to their stories. In addition to drawing complex characters, Ferrante provides a fascinating portrait of the culture of this slice of Italy during rapidly evolving times. Taken together, the novels are both a coming-of-age story and a coming-into-maturity tale of two diverse women who somehow maintain their own complex, and often convoluted, relationship. I can't remember when I have been so completely taken with a series of novels as I have been with these beautifully written and deeply realized stories, and I am having trouble waiting for the final volume. I recommend Those Who Leave and the two previous books in the series with absolutely no reservations. Review: no payday of an ending but a nice reading experience - Once, when I was a teenager back in the good old 1990's, I was reading Seventeen Magazine and came across a candy-bar ad. The ad was a picture of the candy-bar, and the slogan that it was "totally nuts." In the background there was a lot of text in very fine print. I started reading this text, which was a parody version of a 90's teenage girl rambling on forever about nothing. Phone conversations, clothing descriptions, the word "like" thrown in every tenth word or so. Yet I kept reading the whole thing. I was mesmerized and oddly soothed by the repetitive nothingness of the "story." And then, over halfway through, the story was interrupted by congratulations for making it through such a "nutty" story and offered me a free teeshirt. What does this have to do with Elena Ferrante's novel? The repetitive, almost nothingness of the story through the first three books had a similar feeling for me, and I found myself remembering that ad for the first time in many years. Much as I was compelled to finish the advertisement, I also could not put these books down, and I have now finished the 4th novel. This being said, I do not know if I can honestly describe them as being great storytelling. The protagonist (Lenù) is unlikable and rather selfish and short-sighted. She has enough intelligence to excel in school with a lot of hard work, but she never exhibits her own opinion and keeps trying to act in a way that people will reward with praise rather than have any ideas or presence of her own. But yet she is sympathetic at times as someone trying to be her best self, using education as the means. Lila, the friend, is fascinating, but remains a bit of an enigma throughout the books. I wished many times that we were reading the story from her perspective. But I did read it all, and the two women characters do grow up and hit milestones of life throughout the books, but the pattern that they go through remains the same always as they age. Definitely worth reading if you are a reader of novels. A well written, and a unique kind of story for sure, but kind of like reading a teenage girl's long ramble of her inner consciousness that she is aware someone is going to read one day. But the novel does provide plenty of deeper themes to think about and ponder. Feminism, poverty, the modern era and how it changed society, and yet how things stay the same too. The mid-century Italian setting was interesting and was a great atmosphere to the novels. Perhaps if a free tee-shirt had been offered in the middle of the book, it would have gotten 5 stars from me, but alas that was not the case. ## Features - Book Three of the Neapolitan Novels ## Technical Specifications | Specification | Value | |---------------|-------| | Best Sellers Rank | #18,677 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #157 in Women's Divorce Fiction #208 in Family Saga Fiction #217 in Friendship Fiction (Books) | | Customer Reviews | 4.4 out of 5 stars 16,088 Reviews | ## Images ![Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay: A Novel (Neapolitan Novels, 3) - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81TwroED2NL.jpg) ## Available Options This product comes in different **Media Language, Media Format** options. ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ I can't remember when I have been so completely taken with a series of novels as I have been with these beautifully written and *by C***S on February 11, 2015* Those Who Leave is the third book in the author's "Neapolitan Novels" (with the fourth, The Story of the Lost Child, scheduled for publication in the U.S. in September 2015) and it is as gripping and enthralling as the first two. The series is set in a somewhat insular neighborhood of Naples. It is now the late 1960s and 1970s and the two main characters, whose friendship constitutes the center of the books, are now somewhat estranged as their lives have grown complicated and divergent. Still living in Naples, Lina has separated from her husband and is raising her young son while Elena has graduated from college and published a novel. But the actually events of the narrative are not the author's primary concern. Rather, it is the internal life of the two characters and how their own idiosyncratic reactions provide a shape to their stories. In addition to drawing complex characters, Ferrante provides a fascinating portrait of the culture of this slice of Italy during rapidly evolving times. Taken together, the novels are both a coming-of-age story and a coming-into-maturity tale of two diverse women who somehow maintain their own complex, and often convoluted, relationship. I can't remember when I have been so completely taken with a series of novels as I have been with these beautifully written and deeply realized stories, and I am having trouble waiting for the final volume. I recommend Those Who Leave and the two previous books in the series with absolutely no reservations. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ no payday of an ending but a nice reading experience *by M***J on June 19, 2017* Once, when I was a teenager back in the good old 1990's, I was reading Seventeen Magazine and came across a candy-bar ad. The ad was a picture of the candy-bar, and the slogan that it was "totally nuts." In the background there was a lot of text in very fine print. I started reading this text, which was a parody version of a 90's teenage girl rambling on forever about nothing. Phone conversations, clothing descriptions, the word "like" thrown in every tenth word or so. Yet I kept reading the whole thing. I was mesmerized and oddly soothed by the repetitive nothingness of the "story." And then, over halfway through, the story was interrupted by congratulations for making it through such a "nutty" story and offered me a free teeshirt. What does this have to do with Elena Ferrante's novel? The repetitive, almost nothingness of the story through the first three books had a similar feeling for me, and I found myself remembering that ad for the first time in many years. Much as I was compelled to finish the advertisement, I also could not put these books down, and I have now finished the 4th novel. This being said, I do not know if I can honestly describe them as being great storytelling. The protagonist (Lenù) is unlikable and rather selfish and short-sighted. She has enough intelligence to excel in school with a lot of hard work, but she never exhibits her own opinion and keeps trying to act in a way that people will reward with praise rather than have any ideas or presence of her own. But yet she is sympathetic at times as someone trying to be her best self, using education as the means. Lila, the friend, is fascinating, but remains a bit of an enigma throughout the books. I wished many times that we were reading the story from her perspective. But I did read it all, and the two women characters do grow up and hit milestones of life throughout the books, but the pattern that they go through remains the same always as they age. Definitely worth reading if you are a reader of novels. A well written, and a unique kind of story for sure, but kind of like reading a teenage girl's long ramble of her inner consciousness that she is aware someone is going to read one day. But the novel does provide plenty of deeper themes to think about and ponder. Feminism, poverty, the modern era and how it changed society, and yet how things stay the same too. The mid-century Italian setting was interesting and was a great atmosphere to the novels. Perhaps if a free tee-shirt had been offered in the middle of the book, it would have gotten 5 stars from me, but alas that was not the case. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ you can't quite figure out why you like it so much *by A***R on April 28, 2016* In book one you realize Elena Ferrante is a powerful storyteller with an authentic female voice; something nags at you, you can't quite figure out why you like it so much. Maybe because is seems so personal and brave-- she talks about the things we hide in ourselves. In book two, there is a certain point where you realize how brilliant she is and how subtle and layered that brilliance is; it shines new light on book one. In this book, book three (yes read them all and read in order to see the way she evolves her writing) there is a point where I actually laughed with delight to discover something new about her characters and her writing-- a layer of metaphor and universal pull that further underscored the intelligence she is so comfortable with she never has to let it dominate. Only the story, the characters, the sweep of human emotion dominate is such a gentle way that you find yourself suddenly crying or in awe or gasping-- and you have no idea why, all she is just slowly finds it's way into your soul. When I hear there's a book that a lot of women love, that's sweep the country in sales just on word of mouth, I generally run in the other direction. But when I saw the fourth book on the NYT ten top books of the year, I had to reconsider and am so glad I did. Yes it is a book women will especially love but not because it is light and silly and romantic-- because it is harsh and beautiful and brings life into a city and a friendship in a way we all understand but have never heard expressed in such a bold and completely vulnerable way. ## Frequently Bought Together - Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay: A Novel (Neapolitan Novels, 3) - The Story of the Lost Child: A Novel (Neapolitan Novels, 4) - The Story of a New Name: A Novel (Neapolitan Novels, 2) --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.com.ar/products/5678457-those-who-leave-and-those-who-stay-a-novel-neapolitan](https://www.desertcart.com.ar/products/5678457-those-who-leave-and-those-who-stay-a-novel-neapolitan) --- *Product available on Desertcart Argentina* *Store origin: AR* *Last updated: 2026-10-21*