![The Lying Life of Adults](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1592501402l/48753820._SX98_.jpg)
Who would want to be a teenager again? Not me. Nor, I imagine, the fictional narrator of Elena Ferrante's
The Lying Life of Adults.
The book begins with Giovanna Trada remembering an incident when she was 12 years old: "
my father said to my mother that I was very ugly". He goes further, explaining, "
Adolescence has nothing to do with it: she's getting the face of Vittoria" his sister, whom Giovanna has never met. Piqued by a further description that in her aunt "
ugliness and spite were combined to perfection", the young girl contrives to meet this woman to whom she bears a resemblance. As a consequence Giovanna discovers the working-class roots of her academic father, and learns that what adults say is not necessarily true.