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3.53 AVERAGE
3.53 AVERAGE
After the dissolution of her long marriage, Mayes and her new boyfriend decide to buy an Italian villa and restore it to use as a summer/vacation home. She tells about the remodeling process, the history of the Tuscan country-side, and the best peasant dishes she learns to make. I really enjoyed the sensual delights of this book, full of tasty recipes and descriptions of sun-soaked Italian olive terraces while reading it at the start of Michigan's long, cold winter. If you like books that give you insight into life in another country, accompanied by recipes, you might like this book a great deal. Don't judge the book based solely on the movie adaptation, either -- I haven't seen it, but it looks kinda cheesy.
It was all a privileged white woman complaining about how expensive it is to renovate the summer home she purchased in Tuscany and how she suffered because there were scorpions in the house that had been sitting dormant for so long and how she would have to stop taking 10 pairs of Italian leather shoes back to the US with her every year. Insufferable. And that was just the first 35 pages. I gave up after that.
I think this was written at a time when privilege was a thing to flaunt because it was "inspirational." I hated this in the same way I hated Nickel & Dimed and Eat, Pray, Love. If you like books about rich women who travel to find themselves only to learn that the real you has been right there all along inside your heart waiting for you to have wine in Italy before she could be fully realized and then she is forever changed, go for it. Not suggesting travel won't change you. Just suggesting that this story is tired and didn't age well.
I think this was written at a time when privilege was a thing to flaunt because it was "inspirational." I hated this in the same way I hated Nickel & Dimed and Eat, Pray, Love. If you like books about rich women who travel to find themselves only to learn that the real you has been right there all along inside your heart waiting for you to have wine in Italy before she could be fully realized and then she is forever changed, go for it. Not suggesting travel won't change you. Just suggesting that this story is tired and didn't age well.
If you're looking for a book that is like the movie, this is NOT it! Brief moments in the book took me back to the movie, but overall there was no similarity, almost to the point of my wondering how the movie came to be. However, the book is an enjoyable read in its own way, and rekindled my desire to return to Tuscany.
Oh, if only we all had the money to fly between San Francisco and Italy several times a year, to the hillside villa we bought and restored. Gorgeous prose, but the narrator is unlikeable, indulgent, and affected. "We fade" after dinner; the house "cost the earth", the hard-working laborers "should be paid fortunes". Part grocery list, part weather report, part rambling journal, it is incohesive and ultimately so pretentious I can safely say - just watch the movie.
I didn't finish this one. The writing was rich and beautiful at times, but for me, it lacked the "something" that made me want to continue reading. I eventually just lost interest and returned it to the library.
Beautiful writing. I skipped the travel descriptions (I can't keep all the street names straight and I really don't care to). I also skipped the recipes.
I know people love this book. I just never got that into it. Maybe because I already love Eat, Pray, Love and was comparing. Maybe because I felt like I was reading a journal that was not fully edited. Also, I had weird dreams about tombs and saints.
This book is unlike any other that I have read so far, in that it’s almost like reading a strangers diary. I loved the detail and it really set the perfect scene of Tuscany and all its wonders. It includes recipes and general pieces of knowledge about the Italian region, all of which are very interesting! If you aren’t into slow descriptive books then this isn’t for you, however, it made a nice change and a truly lovely Summer read.
An absolutely marvellous evocation of Tuscany and her time spent restoring a villa and observing life in the village. I ended up having to stop reading this to go out and get some wine - it was absolutely necessary to complement the beauteous descriptions of the wine, food, and people of Tuscany.