Book Synopsis:
Lina is spending the summer in Tuscany, but she isn’t in the mood for Italy’s famous sunshine and fairy-tale landscape. She’s only there because it was her mother’s dying wish that she get to know her father. But what kind of father isn’t around for sixteen years? All Lina wants to do is go back home.
But then she is given a journal that her mom had kept when she lived in Italy. Suddenly Lina’s uncovering a magical world of secret romances, art, and hidden bakeries. A world that inspires her, along with the ever-so-charming Ren, to follow in her mother’s footsteps and unearth a secret that has been kept for far too long. It’s a secret that will change everything she knew about her mother, her father—and even herself.
People come to Italy for love and gelato, someone tells her, but sometimes they discover much more.
My Review:
3.5 stars. I've wanted to read this book for a long time now, ever since a friend read it and recommended it. The premise was interesting, and I was drawn in by the Italian setting. However, this book wasn't as good as I was hoping. There were a lot of things with the writing style I didn't like and some annoying tropes used. The plot was decent, but it took a while to get going.
Before I read this, I read some reviews on Goodreads, both good and bad. Most of the good reviews just said it was a cute and "swoon-worthy" romance, but the bad reviews I read mentioned specific things that I kept in mind as I was reading and also noticed.
The first and biggest of these things has to do with the writing style. There were way too many similes and metaphors. Not only were there too many, they were really weird similes. The author would compare some emotion or action to something super obscure and unrealistic, which ruins the whole point of similes. When similes and other figurative language is used in writing, it should be to make something more clear for the readers. So many times throughout this book, it was perfectly clear what was happening without the need to clarify, and all the simile did was make the sentence weird.
Long writer-rant aside, another thing some 1-star reviewers mentioned was that the descriptions of Italy/Italian things felt very stereotypical. I've never been to Italy, but I'm pretty sure that some of the depictions of the country in this book weren't accurate. For example, a few times in the book, it's mentioned that "Italy isn't on the cutting-edge of technology." That sounds wrong. It's not like Italy is a third-world country that's stuck in the 20th century. It also seemed like the only meals Lina ever ate were some form of pasta or pizza, because that's apparently the only thing Italian people eat.
Going back to the writing style, something that kind of annoyed me as I was reading was how casual the voice of Lina was. There were way too many "like"s and "literally"s. It's like the author was trying too hard to show that the main character was a teenager, but it was just annoying.
Almost all the side characters in this book had the same personality: attractive. Especially when Lina was meeting Ren's friends for the first time, I felt like every character was described as "stunning" or "super-model like" or "jaw-droppingly gorgeous." Not everybody is that beautiful in real life.
The parts I think I liked the most in this book were Lina's mom's journal entries. They were a lot more interesting to read than the main POV. Her mom was less annoying and had an engaging story.
On the topic of her mom's story, though, there were two main "twists," and I figured out one of them right away. As soon as "X" was introduced in the journal, I could tell immediately that he wasn't Howard. It was really obvious, and it was frustrating and laughable that Lina didn't know. I didn't predict that Howard wasn't actually Lina's father, but it wasn't that shocking of a reveal.
The main plot started off kind of slow, but it picked up towards the middle and I started to get more invested. As Lina was discovering more stuff and she and Ren were actually doing stuff, it was interesting. I got through the second half of the book much quicker than the first half.
The last thing I'll talk about was the romance. For it being a romance book, it actually wasn't that big of a plot point. When it was, though, it was overly cliché. This book had the insta-love trope, which I usually don't enjoy. Lina had known Ren for five days and was already saying she was full-on in love with him. I can understand becoming good friends with someone in a short time, and maybe even developing a small crush on them, but this was more than that. There wasn't even a build-up of feelings. She was suddenly in love with him, and he just happened to feel the same way.
Content Warning:
There's no bad language except for the h-word once (and a curse word in Italian) and the word "sexy" is included a surprising amount. In terms of romance, there are a few kisses that are described in a little bit of detail, but nothing graphic. The biggest thing I would mention is that there was a chapter where they go to a club and people are dancing inappropriately, and an old guy harasses Lina.
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