Love and Gelato ♥

★★★☆☆

““You know, people come to Italy for all sorts of reasons, but when they sit, it’s for the same two things.”
“What?”
“Love and gelato.”

Lina is an ordinary teenager living  in Seattle, until disaster hits. First her mom gets cancer, than it gets worse and she dies. Unfortunately, before she dies, her mom wishes and tells Lina that she must go to Italy. Alone.

Before she is thrown on the plane for Italy, her grandmother tells her that her dad, Howard lives there and is going to take her in. Wow, thats totally NOT a shock! Lina thinks so too; so when she arrives in Italy and finds her dad runs a World War II memorial cemetery, shes shocked, exhausted, frustrated, confused and scared. 😖

Living in Italy with a million questions about her parents, she wants nothing more than to go home, until she’s given a prized treasure…..her mothers journal. Before her death, her mother sent a journal to Italy for Howard, but another worker at the cemetery received it in the mail and gave it to Lina instead. 😲

As Lina goes through the journal she discovers a whole love life that her mother went through when she came for college in Italy. She had this *thing* with another man and when he left her, she went for Howard. Except when she found out she was pregnant, she had to leave Italy, she couldn’t do this to Howard. Lina was confused. Howard was not her father?!

She than tracks down her real father, but he refuses her as well. He is truly a self-centered brat. She than goes home to the cemetery, tells Howard everything, only to be shocked with the fact that Howard already knew; and he still loves her and wants to be a father to her. 😍

~My thoughts~

THIS BOOK IS REALLY HEARTFELT! Everything described is cute and delicious. From the first description of lasagna to the gelato really, I want to try REAL Italian gelato now.

“So… Italian gelato. Take the deliciousness of a regular ice-cream cone, times it by a million, then sprinkle it with crushed-up unicorn horns.”

^ I mean really? This is beautiful. 🤩

I liked the theme of the book, it really centered around family, and staying together, finding out that family is truly made of the people you love best. 😉

 

Now for the not so good things. First of all I didn’t like how her mom handled her collage life. First she has a inappropriate relationship outside of marriage. Guys this is such a dreadful thing in our society!!! I mean really, we could see all the bad affects it left on Lina. She was confused, mistrusted, left with a bad background.

 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh” -Matthew 19:5

^yup its all there. The best romancy life you could have is having one guy. Theres a beauty in that. I mean even if you had every other single guy you wanted, you would get kinda boring. Drops mallet on toe. Ya, not many would agree with me…but moving on.

Another thing. When Lina lives in Italy, she has her own love triangle. She seems to be following her mothers footsteps, except she chooses one and ditches the other. 🤭 Even though this was a good choice, I was disappointed because Howard was not involved. Though he set curfews, he let her do whatever she wanted. This is not good because she could have done the same thing her mother had. It would have been a repeat of her mothers life. In the end tough, i’m really glad she picked the right choice.

Would I recommend this book? Yes. Even with its few quirks and disappointments. It was fun and cute. Yup, if you like Italy, or fun Italian stories, this on is for you! 🙂

Ciao! [CHow] in Italian 😉

Amy