One day Giovanna hears her father saying that she is getting the face of Vittoria. The hate in his voice makes her recoil and starts a resolute journey of meeting her aunt. Her aunt who is crass and rough makes her see things closely and clearly. This leads to a melodrama consisting of betrayals, affairs and breaks up of a family. Throw this with Giovanna's confusing adolescence, the desire to explore her sexuality and her crush for a man who is 10 years her elder (also a fiancé of another woman) you get the book The Lying Life of Adults. 



This is my first Ferrante and needless to say I am perplexed. I didn't expect the book to be fervent in its portrayal of adolescence and the bizarre web of desire and emotions. But here we are! After finishing this book, I just lay there lamenting about the confusing years of my adolescence. In case you want to know, I don't want to remember that ever.



Prepubescent and pubescent ages are confusing. You don't know what's happening to your body and mind. You want to explore it but ashamed of it. You want to be loved but it's usually not in the way you want to be. This exactly happens with Giovanna who grew up as an obedient girl of her well-educated parents. But the moment she hears the hate in her father's voice changes the crux of her life. She starts an obstinate journey to find her aunt to see if her father's words have any weight to them.  Once she meets her aunt, she finds her mesmerizing. And as time goes, she discovers that every adult lies for their convenience including her aunt.



Her father lied about loving her mother. Her mother lied about not seeing anyone. Her aunt lied about the bracelet her mother received as a gift. And so it goes on. Seeing the pattern of lying everywhere, Giovanna also starts to lie. She learns to manipulate people. There is a point where she feels that to lose innocence, one has to lie. It is those lies that push a person into adulthood.



After her father leaves their home for another woman, she becomes more reticent. She judges her mom pining after her dad. She hates her for wasting away her life for an undeserving man. But she also understands the love behind the gesture. As her body grows, Giovanna becomes more insecure. She stands in front of the mirror and scrutinize her face and thinks of her features in a new way. She looks at her ever-growing chest and thinks, that is enough to manipulate a man to do anything she wants.

.

.

She feels a lot of things at once. Love, lust, desire, betrayal, hurt, fear of the unknown. She sees boys and men acting oddly because of her growing body and that makes her vulnerable.  On one of her visits to her aunt, she meets a Pastor in training (also a professor like her dad) Roberto and instantly attracted by him. She reads up everything she can so that she can argue with him the next time they meet. She also befriends Giuliana, his fiancee, to get close to Roberto. Even with all the efforts, she finds that is difficult to find a person who loves you for you. 

.

.

And that is the point, isn't it? There are very less people who will love you in all your imperfection and perfection. And the pressure we put on teenage girls is immense. They are poked and prodded till they explode. And when they explode, we go, "wow! That's too bitchy for your age." It is no wonder that they stop expecting love and grow into an insecure individual. Giovanna perfectly gets that and leaves her home with her friend, to grow into an adult-like no one has. The Lying Life of Adults is not about how Adults lie their way into life. It is about how we grow into an adult by Lying.