A summer in Italy turns into a road trip across Tuscany in this sweeping New York Times bestseller filled with romance, mystery, and adventure.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 … 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.
Kirkus Reviews called Love & Gelato “a sure bet for fans of romance fiction,” while VOYA said readers “will find it difficult to put this book down.” Readers are about to discover a new place, a new romance, and a new talent.
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Love and Gelato sounds like a lighthearted Italian romance but this novel had a lot of hidden depth and emotional trauma. Our heroine, Lina, deals with her mother dying of cancer and finding out who her father is within the same few months. Her mother’s dying wish was for her to go to Italy and see the country she fell in love with and give her father a chance to get to know her. When she arrives, she is given her mother’s journal to read and starts to understand her love of Italy through her mother’s young eyes, visiting her favorite places with her new friend Ren. Some of the surprises that are in store for her are life changing and heart warming.
I love Jenna Evans Welch’s easy going style. Her novels are totally PG and are usually more about friendship and family than romance and this novel is no different. Ren, as the love interest, is totally charming and adorable but their’s is a love story that grows through a strong friendship and of course, lots of gelato.
Change country to live with a father you’ve never met. Leave an apartment in a large American city to live in a post-war memorial in the interior of Italy. Changes are always difficult, especially radicals, but they can always bring learning. This is the proposal implicit in the reading of Love and Gelato. Lina has just lost her mother after a brief but painful period of fighting cancer. And now she will have, by virtue of a promise made before his departure, to move to Florence and live with Howard, hers hitherto unknown father, in the memorial cemetery where he lives and works.
Secrets and discoveries are the seasoning of this intriguing and sometimes confusing plot. It is interesting to note that Carolina opens up to this new world as slowly as the blossoming of a rare floral specimen, while she may experience a unique opportunity: to see Florence through her mother’s eyes. As if they were together, strolling through the city their mother loved so much.
While discovering the charms of Florence, Lina begins her journey in discovering her own feelings. A romantic and dramatic journey, with certain mismatches, sewn into a web of events that unfold all at the same time. The truths about her father, her mother, her relationships and her feelings are revealed at the same time that she finds herself involved in the same drama as her mother: making the right choices.
At the end of the journey, we have a new Carolina. One of the truths contained in the narrative certainly points out that family is more than a mere blood bond. People who choose to be by your side and accept you with all their nuances, yes, they constitute your true family.
Negative points: I confess that at the beginning of the book I got a little annoyed with the heroine. I gave a discount because of the trauma of the mother’s loss.
Cringy in some parts with feels scattered about. Overall cute story.
It was such a good read, highly recommend for summer!
This is a very interesting book!! But the book is too long and I wish it was sorter.
This book is just perfect for vacation. The setting – Italy! – is a really good detail, I liked the place a lot. It tells and shows a lot about Florence.
The book is about teens, first love, crazy summer and the best ice cream ever. We fidget with the main character, Lina, laugh together or want to slap a boy together.
But this book isn’t just about fun things: lost family, lost love, lost chances are important in this story too, and we find this thing side by side with Lina.
Delightful easy to read and surprisingly layered and emotional, a perfect novel to read on a trip.
Even though I am in my 70’s, I enjoy books written for teens. This is one. The characters are real and I enjoyed seeing Florence.
Great read. Loved the description of the various areas visited in Italy.
This a wonderful YA read, that adults can enjoy. The main character learns about herself as she reads her mother’s diary and tries to figure out the mystery around her absentee father. The character development is satisfying and feels true.