There is a line early in this book where Elena talks about the "prison" that would have held them—lives of misery, ignorance, and submission. I paused the audio right there. I was sitting in my car in the school parking lot, watching the snow pile up on the windshield, dreading first period. (Sorry, AP English, but your essays on The Great Gatsby are killing me.)
That feeling—of escaping a life only to realize you're still tethered to it—is the entire mood of Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay.
We are deep in the weeds of the Neapolitan Quartet now. Book three. And if you haven't started the series yet, My Brilliant Friend is where this whole beautiful nightmare begins—Huber's narration there sets the tone for everything that follows. If you thought the first two were emotionally taxing, grab a helmet. This isn't just a story about friendship anymore; it's a war zone of class, gender, and 1970s Italian politics. And honestly? Exhausting. In the best way possible.
The Voice Inside My Head
Let's talk about Hillary Huber.
I've listened to a lot of narrators who think "acting" means doing funny voices. Huber doesn't do that. She does something way harder. She captures the exhaustion of Elena Greco.
Her delivery is languid—almost dangerously slow at times. (I know, I know, my students listen to everything at 2.0x speed because they have the attention span of gnats, but I kept this at strict 1.0x). Huber pulled off the same deliberate pacing in Story of a New Name, and it's just as essential there. You need the slowness. You need to feel the weight of every bad decision these women make.
Huber manages to make Elena sound educated and detached, while making Lila sound... jagged. Rough. There's a specific intimacy to her narration that feels like someone whispering uncomfortable truths in your ear while you're trying to sleep. It's effective, but I won't lie—it gets heavy. There were moments walking along Lake Michigan with Denise where I just had to pull the earbuds out because the tension in Huber's voice was stressing me out more than the actual plot.
When Friendship Becomes a Contact Sport
Here is the thing about Ferrante that I try to teach my students (usually unsuccessfully): Great literature isn't always about people you like.
Elena has "made it." She's published. She's educated. She's floating through salons talking about politics. Meanwhile, Lila is working in a sausage factory, literally drowning in the brutal reality of the working class.
The contrast hurts. And Ferrante doesn't let you look away. The middle section drags you through the political unrest of the '70s—the strikes, the violence, the feminism that feels both revolutionary and totally futile.
I'll be honest, the political theory sections can get dry. I might have zoned out for five minutes while grading a particularly disastrous paper on Hamlet. But Huber usually pulls you back in with a moment of pure, raw female rage. The way these two women love and hate each other... it's spiritual, but it's also toxic. Reminds me of why I stopped going to my high school reunions.
The Emotional Toll
Some people say this audiobook is painful to get through. They aren't wrong.
It's not a "fun" listen. It's not something you put on while you're gardening to feel nice about the tulips. It's a psychological endurance test. The narration is so intimate that by hour 12, you feel like you're the one having a nervous breakdown in Naples.
But that's the point. That's the art.
Who's This For (And Who Should Run)
If you're looking for a plot that moves from A to B with a happy resolution, go read a mystery novel. (I love those too, no shade). But if you want to understand the terrifying complexity of being a woman trying to invent herself in a world that wants to crush her, this is it. Skip if you need momentum or likeable protagonists. Lean in if you've got patience for slow-burn psychological devastation.
Just... maybe take a break between chapters. Drink some water. Go outside. Ferrante demands a lot from her readers, and Huber demands even more from her listeners. Worth it, though. Every agonizing minute.
