Love & Gelato

In this YA novel, sixteen-year-old Lina travels to Florence to fulfill her mother’s dying wish: to meet and get to know the father she never knew. Wow! There is so much to love about this book. It’s a perfect mix of romance, mystery, and adventure. It’s a genuinely wonderful coming-of-age story about coping with grief, embracing a new culture, and finding yourself in an exciting new place. Lina discovers Italy through her mother’s detailed journal. I loved how young Hadley (Lina’s mom) kept these beautiful journals and scrapbooks and was brave enough to let people read them! What sets this book apart is that it lets you experience an exciting new place through the eyes and heart of a carefree, brave, and thoughtful teen. It makes you remember those feelings you had as a teen, where adults with their worries and busy, boring lives sounded so annoying! This book feels incredibly real. I doubled up on the audiobook and really enjoyed it! It certainly helps with the pronunciation of the Italian words. This was a delightful novel with well-written characters—a feel-good read that was hard to put down.

In an effort to honor her mother's dying wish, Lina is heading to Florence, Italy to live with the man she believes to be her father and she is not quite happy about the arrangement. He is practically a stranger, living in a cemetery. However, after receiving her mother's old journal pertaining to the time she spent in Florence, Lina, along with her newly found friend, Ren, begin a quest to discover the truth about her mother's past and how to proceed with the future. I was about half-way through the book when I realized this story was not going to pack the emotional punch that I was hoping for, The writing itself seemed underdeveloped and basic and I caught several spelling/grammar errors throughout which just adds to my opinion. I also felt that through the first half, Welch failed to truly capture the emotion in the events she was discussing, particularly in the journal entries she provided which felt very light and fluffy and did not carry the weight that they possibly were supposed to. Here we have a young girl who has just lost her mom and is sent to live in a foreign country with a man she has never met. To me, this is a substantive life changes that would seem to very heavy and emotional yet I did not feel that while reading And Ren. Can we talk about him? Cute. Charming. Sweet. He is the epitome of the boy next door and you cannot help but fall for him...but it was almost incredible how for the first half of the story he is her best friend with practically no hint and romantic feelings and then five days later she is in love with him? Don't get me wrong, I totally wanted that relationship to happen, but it seemed very quick and not quite believable. I was not as connected to their story as I'd hoped to be. But then enters the last half of the story which truly blew me away and gave me everything that I could have possibly wanted from this YA contemporary....mostly. Definitely worth the read

I don’t rate books five stars very easily. For me this was an easy six stars read. I adored it and read it in roughly 2 days! The plot was amazing and felt strong. I can’t remember a distinct moment when I was bored or eager to get done with a chapter. I wanted to savor every bit. A few things I feel like I need to address… A lot of people made this book sound like it was for eleven year-olds. Coming from a thirteen year-old I couldn’t disagree more. I feel like this is a perfect YA book for any age group. Whether your eleven or thirty I think this book is great if you like clean contemporary romance books. Also I forgot to mention the mystery aspect of it! The mystery wasn’t scary and it was predictable but fun. It was the cherry on top for the perfect book. Overall great book. The main character didn’t feel too dramatic or emotional. There were also some great moments that made me smile and laugh-out-loud. Great romance book.

This was such a sweet, fun book and I could have ten books following Lina and her time in Italy and still want more! I had such a good time reading this book and it got me excited about contemporaries again. It was really the best kind of contemporary to read near the end of Summer. In Love & Gelato we follow Lina after her mother has passed away and she is sent to Italy for the Summer to live with the father she didn't know she had. While in Italy, Lina is given a journal from the year her mother got pregnant with her and begins to uncover all of the mysteries her mother left behind. I think one of my favorite aspects of this book was how light it went on the romance. I had expected this book to be pretty romance-heavy, which is fine with these kind of books, but I was genuinely surprised to find that the romance was more of a subplot rather than a dominant narrative. It was really nice that we got to focus more on Lina learning more about her mother and forming a bond with the father she didn't know she had. With that being said, the romance was really sweet and fluffy and didn't feel forced at all. I really loved her romantic interest, though I did feel like the love triangle thing was a little unnecessary. It didn't hinder my enjoyment, but it also could have easily been written out. However, I do see how it is supposed to mirror her mother's love triangle struggles. I feel like maybe if the love triangle had been stronger, then it might have worked better. This sort of love triangle just didn't cut it. I also really loved how much like Mamma Mia it was. I'm not sure if that was intentional on the author's part, but I just kept being reminded of Mamma Mia. Lina's reading her mother's journal to find out things about her, she's in a foreign country, she isn't totally sure who her dad is... A lot of the same elements seem to be there which is nice for someone suffering from a Mamma Mia hangover! I've been wanting to find more books with that same feel, and I'm glad that Love & Gelato is fairly similar. Getting to know more about Lina's mother and her time in Italy was so great and could have easily been its own book! I also really liked how we got a lot of Lina's mother's journal entries to read. It really felt like we were right there with Lina finding out more about her mother. It was also cool to get to see some of Florence's history and have a little bit of Latin thrown in there! Overall this is just a really fun contemporary to read and I felt like I was breezing through it. I would imagine that just about anyone would enjoy this book and not find too much wrong with it. It's not the strongest contemporary out there, but it was so enjoyable and it was so fluffy that I have to give credit where credit is due. If you're looking for something light to read, then this book is the right one for you!

Loved this book! As did my teen daughter and her friend ! great start to the summer read looking forward to reading the rest of the series!

"Love and Gelato" (LG). First things first - the very best ice cream/gelato/frozen dessert is Haagen Dazs Vanilla. Second place is Haagen Dazs Con De Leche, and third place is Haagen Dazs Rum Raisin. Now before all you gelato lovers get your panties in a twist let me say that I like most gelato. I have had gelato in Italy and in the US. A lot of gelato. Some of it is better than some ice creams, and vice versa. I will also add that I have seen lots of Italy and like most tourists I fell in love with Italy and with most things Italian, including Limoncello, Pisa, Florence, the Uffizi, and David. But let's not get all crazy about an over-priced dessert just because it's Italian and because it's the fad of the moment. So chill, everyone. Unfortunately, I'm not as enthusiastic about LG. It's ok as a YA novel goes but it's really just another dessert - light, tasty, refreshing for a few moments, forgettable. High schooler Lina loses her Mom to cancer and following one of Mom's last wishes flies off to Tuscany to spend time with the mysterious Howard. But what was Mom's relationship to hunky Howard? Friend? Lover? Father of her only child? It seems the answer might be found in a journal that Mom sent to Howard sometime back. Lina pours through it seemingly a few pages at a time, sharing her findings with the reader (one of her friends goes through it in two hours!) And so the story slowwwlllyyyy enfolds. Anyway, Lina quickly encounters the Love of her life - that would be Lorenzo, or is it Thomas? They have the usual teen-age spats, and say really stupid things to each other. I note that some of these YA things label their work "For ages 12 and up" I would like to suggest a new approach - how about "For ages 14 and down"

Read this for my bookclub, #readingcupcakes, check it out on IG/Twitter! After all the thrillers and suspenseful books we’ve been reading lately, I’ve really just been dying to read a fun book that would hold my attention and be lighthearted and fun. Love & Gelato totally fit the bill, although it did have a bit of a sad story underneath it all, but that made it all the more interesting in my view. Most of my reviews I don’t include spoilers, but I can’t hold back on this one – so if you haven’t finished the book yet :::STOP HERE::: and don’t read the rest of my post until you are done! 🙂 The book is about Carolina “Lina” a girl in high school who loses her mother way too soon to cancer and is shipped off to live with someone who she told is her dad (who she has never met) in Italy. Lina is thrown off as soon as she gets to Italy when she discovers that her father’s house is actually located on a cemetery, an old World War II Memorial site. Soon after she gets there she receives an old journal of her mom and starts learning more secrets about her than she ever expected to. She starts off on a journey around Italy discovering places that her mom wrote about, trying to figure out the secrets of her mother’s past and why she would’ve left her this journal. She meets a bunch of new friends along the way and even falls in love – and not just with gelato. Lina is typical teenager, somewhat selfish and reserved, who at first falls for the hottest guy in the room, yet ends up falling in love with her ‘best friend’, the boy she met by chance the day after she moved to Italy. The love story part was a bit cliche, but I am a sap and got sucked into it, I wanted it to be a happy ending and for a while I didn’t think that was going to happen, but – deep breath – it did, and they ended up together in the end. As for the part about her mother, that was like a little mystery in enough itself. To discover that the man she went to live with wasn’t actually her father, but instead one of her mom’s closest friends that she thought she could trust her daughter to, that part of the story was really interesting. What I also thought was unique about the book was that it really went into the culture and history of Italy, where Lina was following in her mother’s footsteps and just learning about places I would’ve never known about otherwise. I found myself googling some of the spots that she visited just to see what they looked like for myself. Anyways – I will stop there.

So I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen this book at the bookstore shelf calling to me but I put it off for some other book (that’s probably still unread on my shelf 😅🙈) but with the movie coming out and a buddy read, I made it a priority and I’m so glad I did! This is such a sweet easy read. 🍦 Lina finds herself in Italy, she really doesn’t want to be there but it was her mother’s dying wish for her to see Florence. Where her mom had found love. Lina is hurting and confused when she runs into a teenage boy. They strike up a friendship and Ren helps Lina see the sights and puzzle out her mom’s old journal. 🍦 Lina was a moody teenager much of the beginning where I was feeling for Howard and so amazed at how he rolled with it. 😂 Howard is 🙌🏼 and I loved seeing their relationship evolve. I imagined Ren to be like a half Italian Tom Holland who was this happy and excited kid that’s happy to be there. 🍦 Some of the plot was predictable but not all of it. It’s full of great growth/coming of age, food! I need to find gelato near me and being brave and vulnerable to opening yourself to others. 🍦 This had such a great dynamic with the journal entries, 2 stories into 1 book. This had forbidden love, love triangle, friends to lovers, found family. Can’t wait for the movie! And to read the other books! 🍦 Content: mild teenage drinking, grief of dead parent, mild language

If you are looking for a book to get you out of your reading slump, then this book is it. It’s so incredibly wholesome that I devoured this book in one sitting. As the weather is turning, I wanted nothing more than to be in Tuscany with Lina as she navigates life after her mother’s death. It is very emotive at times as Lina deals with the grief of losing her mother and moving to a foreign country. Jenna transports you to Tuscany and the reader feels that they are with Lina every step of the way. The incorporation of Italian throughout and the famous landmarks made me feel like I was walking the streets of Italy too and I also picked up some useful phrases. I couldn’t complete this review without incorporating Howard. If you every need an example of everlasting love, Howard is your man.

Um livro que tenha amor e sorvete no nome não pode ser ruim, certo? :) Love & Gelato é leve, como seu gênero promete, mas trata de assuntos profundos, com o impacto que nossas escolhas têm na nossa vida e na vida dos outros. Fala de sofrimento e superação também. O passeio por Florença é uma delícia a parte: dá vontade de realmente pegar o próximo voo e ir conhecer a cidade e toda a Toscana, além de experimentar todas as delícias da gastronomia local. Leitura rápida, boa para aquela tarde tranquila de domingo.

My 14 yr old daughter loves to read. She enjoyed it.

Ce livre est écrit en anglais. Je ne pense pas que c'était marqué. De plus la couverture de couleur crème est toute sale. C'était pour offrir

Good