I had high hopes for this one – Italy is one of my favorite places in the world, and I was hoping that this book would end up being an Italian version of Anna and the French Kiss. Sadly, it was pretty far from that. The characters were borderline annoying, there was a complete lack of chemistry, and a total absence of emotional weight or an intriguing plot.
“I made the wrong choice.”
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 get 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 Lina, 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.
Do you ever watch a movie and want to yell at the main character that they’re making the wrong choices over and over again? That’s what reading this book is like. For example, she couldn’t figure out who exactly Howard (her new father figure) was, even when it was very clearly laid out for her in her mother’s journal. For context, Lina recently lost her mother and has been shipped out to live with a family friend in Italy. While the reason is tragic, it was hard to sympathize with her when she seemed to skip over mourning her mother altogether. I had zero emotional connection to this book – It definitely felt like her mother’s death was glossed over and used simply as a plot device to get her to Italy rather than a massive, tragic event in any person’s life.
Lina’s naivety drove me up the wall. At one point, another character had to explain what gelato is (as if anyone in this day and age hasn’t heard of gelato). She also had this concept in her head that she could just move home and live with her best friend instead of being with any of her appointed guardians. She just generally seems to not understand how the world works, even at the normal understanding level of a teenager. The rest of the characters were your basic one dimensional supporting cast. None of them had substantial subplots and more or less disappeared for most of the book. Given that this is a YA romance, it was especially disappointing how little chemistry there was between Lina and any of her love interests.
The plot itself was a snoozefest. Since the big mystery and main plot (who Lina’s father is and how Howard fits into the picture) was easy to figure out after only reading a handful of pages of the book, the whole book just felt like a trudge. Romances are normally pretty character and chemistry driven, but this one couldn’t even be carried by those. The book also squandered its spectacular setting – Tuscany is a spectacular area with a rich history but the book mostly just hit the main tourist highlights.
Do yourself a favor and give this one a pass. It’s impressively bland and falls flat when compared to it’s peers in the YA romance genre. If you’re looking for a good YA alternative, check out Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins. If you want a more adult version of this story, check out Getting Hot with the Scot by Melonie Johnson. 1/5.
18 Comments
I’m sorry to hear that you didn’t like it. Thank you for your honesty. I can’t stand naive/ignorant main characters so I guess it will be a pass 🙂
I am sorry you didn’t like this one…Happy Reading 🙂
Ooo sorry this was such a flop. I hope your next read is better.
Gemma @ Gemma’s Book Nook
What a bummer!
Oh wow! 1/5!
Wow, it sounds like there’s some potential here for this book to have some emotional power and it just failed spectacularly! 🙂 I think if the author portrayed the MC as not feeling all that sad over her mom dying, she should definitely be able to portray why she’d react like that. Being generically indifferent to the death of a parent tends to make a character both unlikable and hard to relate to. Great review, I love to read people’s negative critiques for some reason! 😛
I read this book back in 2017 and actually loved it. This is why I love reading, everyone has a different opinion of a book and also why authors shouldn’t take reviews to heart as not everyone will love their books in the same way as not everyone will hate the same books.
I’ve always wanted to read this, shame you didn’t enjoy it great review.
This book is definitely outside my preferred genres, but I’m still sorry that it didn’t work out for you!
Sucks this book did not work out for you.
I’ve been noticing this one on my feed
Bummer- I’ve had this on my bookshelf since last summer and now in no rush to pick up.
I saw this one a while back and was thinking about getting it as love anything with an Italian connection. Now I’m glad I didn’t get it. Hope your next read is better.
Great honest review. It’s too bad this one didn’t work out. Sounds like it had a lot of potential. Hope your next read is amazing!
Thanks for the honest review! I hope your next read is better!
Aw man, that’s too bad. Thanks for your honest review!
Aww man that sucks it wasn’t a good read. Thanks for posting an honest review
Oh my! This sounds like a real mess
Totally Addicted to Reading