Love and Gelato – Book Review

“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 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.

This is one of those rare romance books that I gave a five star rating on I always wanted to read this book and now since the movie is out on Netflix, that made me want to read this book more.

Not sure about the movie, but the book was great!

The book starts off with Lina moving to Italy, where her mother used to live there are a photography student. She meets Howard, who is apparently Lina’s father and the man her mother had loved. While trying to build a relationship with Howard, Lina also meets Ren, a fellow American-Italian boy living in a gingerbread house. Lina then receives her mother’s journal and soon starts to read about her life in Italy including how she met Lina’s biological father.

This is I have to say, quite an unputdownable book! I couldn’t stop reading as I want to read more–the extracts from Lina’s mother’s diary was what made the book interesting as she calls the man she met as X. Besides that, the descriptions of Italy, the historic sites, and places in Florence, the food, the gelato already made me feel like I was also in Italy with the character. I do like the part of living in the cemetery. The book was slightly emotional but there were some funny parts too and I like Lina’s friendship with Ren and also her relationship with Howard. If you haven’t read this book yet, I highly recommend you try out this book. I haven’t read her next books but after reading this book, I want to read the next book in the series–although the characters will be different from the first book. Overall this book worth five stars!