Season two of the television adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels picks up where the first ended – at Lila’s wedding and its aftermath. Now sixteen, the brilliant friends’ lives are more complex, and Gaia Girace as Lila and Margherita Mazzucco as Elena deliver performances that are psychologically richer and more satisfying. The Story of a New Name covers five years – as they leave childhood well and truly behind – up to Elena’s university graduation and her first publishing success, and Lila’s changing fortunes in their burgeoning corner of Naples.

I enjoyed the first season of this adaptation very much, but I really, really love this second one. Italy in the 1960s is in the grip of a huge economic boom. In the neighbourhood, buildings go up, new shops open. The Story of a New Name evokes the glamour of this moment in Italian history – the period production design and costumes are gorgeous; the Italian pop music soundtrack inspired. Rapid development brings social change – in classrooms, at worksites, on the streets. And for Lila and Elena, too, everything personal is also political. Both fight becoming like the neighbourhood’s women – with lives eaten up by men and their demands, their violent sense of ownership.

Series creator Saverio Costanzo directs six of the eight episodes, but brilliant Italian filmmaker Alice Rohrwacher (Happy as Lazzaro) directs two pivotal ones. She brings an immersive emotional realism to the material, offering new insight into Lila and Elena’s loyal yet competitive bond. Each wants some of what the other has. I know a lot of Ferrante fans have avoided this series, nervous that any visual imagining can only fail to capture the intensity of the novels. I understand this trepidation, but this adaptation is its own entity, and quite a magnificent one. Please give it a go. I have a strong feeling, based on season two, that it will only get better and better.

Joanna Di Mattia works as a bookseller at Readings Carlton.