Well, I really had every intention of watching the Netflix film adaptation Jenna Evans Welch’s young adult novel, Love & Gelato, before reading it, but that just never happened. You all know why at this point. And while I’m still going to watch the movie, I just know it is going to be bad.
Still, the book itself was a light, enjoyable page-turner, but it’s definitely not the best young adult novel I’ve ever read. The contents of the book mirror author Welch’s life to the extent that she studied in Florence, Italy, the same place her lead character Lina goes to live after her mother passes from cancer. With this move to Italy, Lina learns that Howard, her mother’s best friend is also her father. Talk about a life-changer! Lina has no intention of staying in Italy, but a few factors slowly start to change her mind. First is that she meets a nice guy nicknamed Ren, who immediately takes her under his wing. Secondly, Howard is actually a pretty awesome guy. And thirdly, she’s got a journal from her mother revealing some pretty big secrets from when she lived in Florence.
It’s immediately obvious to me that Lina will end up liking Ren, and it’s also obvious to me that Howard is likely not Lina’s father. It was interesting reading her mother’s journal entries, slowly revealing the truth about Lina’s parentage. I know Lina is in high school, but she’s kind of ridiculous in a lot of ways, and more rude than I anticipated. Luckily, we get some decadent descriptions of the Italian landscape to soften the edges a bit. Something else that really bothered me about this book is that in much less than a week Lina has declared Ren her best friend, and then not long after that she loves him. Slow down, girl! Those are things that just seemed very eye roll worthy to me, but I suppose I’m not the target audience here.
Overall, the book was enjoyable and it has me itching to go to Italy! I’ve been slowly learning Italian, so the bits and pieces that showed up in the novel were a nice test of my comprehension. Here’s hoping that dual citizenship comes through sooner rather than later! I’d say if you want something light for the summer, then give this a go. I’ll report back later on the film.