A domestic tale takes on mythic proportions in The Door, set in mid-century Budapest. Magda Szabo unwinds the friendship between an elderly housekeeper with an enormous, borderline magical capacity to do whatever she puts her mind to, and a bourgeois writer who does very little but write.

It's a gorgeous book on a sentence level, but I felt underwhelmed as it went on. I guess I was expecting more of a mystery, more to unpack, more of a reveal. But the only real mystery of the book is the core of Magda and Emerence's friendship, and there is no "big" reveal - only small reveals of human truths that leave behind bigger questions. Why do we become so bonded to certain people and not to others? How can a relationship built on love be so difficult and so painful? Is it possible to move on from your mistakes or are they destined to haunt (and shape) you forever?I liked Emerence, she reminded me a lot of Lila Cerullo - maybe Szabo was an influence on Ferrante? Even Magda felt similar to Elena. I didn't like Magda at all probably because I found her too relatable - insular, unreliable, too invested in her own inner world. But overall this was an interesting story about a complex friendship and an extraordinary woman who could have been anything but chose to be a pillar of her small community instead. Intriguing and well-written, though not sure I'd read it again.