ARC Review: LOVE & GELATO by Jenna Evans Welch

LOVE & GELATO

Summary:

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 from Lina 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.

Title: LOVE & GELATO

Author: Jenna Evans Welch

Source: ARC via the Publisher

Publisher: Simon Pulse

Publication Date: May 3, 2016

Rating: 4 stars

Purchase:

Amazon | Chapters | TBD

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this in exchange for an honest review.

This was really cute and clever and while I was completely enthralled by the story, I also felt like there was something missing. I think it's because Lina makes all these decisions before she gets to the end of the story and it doesn't really make sense to me. I feel like once she got an idea she just jumped on it rather than think things through and IDK FINISH THE JOURNAL.

I understand that the two stories needed to intertwine and come together over the course of the novel but it just didn't make sense to me that she wouldn't have finished the journal before going to Rome. IDK it just felt like a decision I would never had made and it was off putting. Because everything else that Lina did was smart and rational EXCEPT this. And that's what bothered me.

I think there were lots of good things in this one and I really liked Lina and the different relationships she had with the characters, but it never felt like the majority of the secondary characters had much going on and were used as a bit of a sounding board for Lina, especially Addie. I also feel like there was a definite switch in Thomas's personality once it was obvious she was going to choose Ren which I didn't like. Also she was in love with Ren after five days? No. Like I am glad she mentions that it is kinda absurd but still. Especially since this is like the FOREVER LOVE that Howard and her mom had. Thanks but no thanks.

I did really like her relationship with Howard though. I think he was a good father to her once he knew about her and I really liked seeing them come together in a parental-child relationship. I would have liked just a bit more communication between the two of them because that would have solved half the problems in this story.

However, it was a cute contemporary read that comes with a recommendation to read from me! And I definitely want to go to Italy now. I was actually on the fence before about it but this has swayed me. Although I can't have gelato so really is there a point. Guess I could always find some love!

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