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Love & Gelato by Jenna Evan Welch

 

Paperback Edition

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 Lina 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 Lina 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.

 

***

Title : Love & Gelato

Author : Jenna Evan Welch

Published date : May 2016

Pages : 400 Pages

Language : English

Genre : Young Adult, Romance, Travel

Age Recommendation : 10+

 

It is always nice to take a break from Asian Literature and then dive into American Young Adult fiction. Like a scoop of Gelato, this book defines love and family matters in a sweet, sour, and refreshing story.

Carolina, a high school student from the USA, just experienced a life-changing moment. Her world crashed in a matter of months because of her mother's sickness. A terminal pancreatic cancer, 4 months after the diagnosis, her mother passed away.

Before that, Carolina- or Lina made a promise to her mother to try to stay in Florence, a beautiful city in Italy. Under normal circumstances, it would be a blessing. But suddenly her mother spews so many stories about a man named Howard, who lives in Italy. And in a matter of no time, Lina flew to Italy to stay during the summer with this just-known man, Howard.

Howard is a gigantic man, with blond hair and blue eyes. So much different from Lina, but she learned from her grandmother that Howard is his estranged father.

On top of all, Howard is the caretaker of the US Memorial of WWII victims in Florence. They live deep in the cemetery, though that is just a symbol.

Resistance at first, Lina slowly explores the city with a cute boy that lives in a ginger beard house behind the cemetery. Lorenzo or Ren.

Plus, there is a journal from her mother that send specifically to Italy before she passed away. Lina peeled every page slowly and explore the city while learning the truth, about what happened to her mother during her stay in Italy.

Meanwhile, her future classmates are good people. They welcome her, and there is a special handsome boy with a British accent, Thomas that may like Lina. Should Lina stays after the summer or does she need to come back to the US, and live with her best friend? Because as beautiful as the city, as delicious as the food, everything surrounding her is foreign to her skin.

This book delivers a 'general' plotline in a very unique way that is made in an unpredictable 3/4-way. But, hey, nobody mind with cliche plotline when it comes to a romantic story.

Combining a dreamy city, handsome and beautiful boy, American teenage girl with family matters is a good formula to flutter every reader's heart. I like how the author didn't bring the old formula into a detailed plot. Bring Thomas to the story, how Lina initiates kissing even how relentless she is to pursue her mother's story (without even finishing the journal first! yes, teenager!) and of course fighting for the feeling.

I love the chemistry between the funny and sarcastic Lina combining the good father and dorky Howard. How they endure the mourning phase and fight for the love they believe in. Though Lina's mother has no line except in the first chapter, her journals echoed how dynamic, brave and lovely her character is.

There are so many Italian stereotypes in the book, I don't know how the Italians take it. Plus, sometimes the metaphor is undecipherable like, "my voice was like weak tea". The diction and sentences especially in the early chapters are not flowing seamlessly.

Yet, it is a light-reading that is a bit questioning your logic. But, I don't mind! It is the best book to take a break from the heavy theme and fluffed my heart during the break.

It is a good read! And this book would make a good motion pictures in Netflix!
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