Reviews with content warning for Death of parent - Ogni strada porta da te

Enjoyed the story of finding yourself, rebuilding. Loved the hiking bits and the grump/sunshine pairing. Also great side characters. Knocked a star off due to super cringe nicknames. Didn’t have a problem with (what I understand is) the authors signature slow burn, but the book couple probably have been 100 pages less.

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mrsboomreads's review against another edition

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2.75

I have thoughts. (Mild spoilers)

I’ve been duped. This was billed as a romance novel and, not it! This is contemporary fiction with a itty bitty, teeny tiny side portion of excruciatingly slow romance. Manage those expectations!

What I loved:
• I enjoyed Aurora’s character arc. She grows up and stands up to her crappy ex and get out of the dead end, toxic, financially/emotionally relationship, then heals her heart and starts over in her hometown.
• Honoring her late mother’s memory by following her love of hiking was beautiful, and the descriptions of the scenery and hiking were 👌🏻
• The Ex drama was well done. Aurora was great at standing up for herself.
• The female friendships, old and new (“one is silver and the other gold” 🎵)

What irked me:
• Rhodes goes far beyond the grump in a sunshine/grump trope. Try grizzly.
• The pet names. Omg, please no more. I cringed every time through this progression from Rhodes calling Aurora “kiddo” to “Angel” to...”Buddy” 🥴 Make. It. Stop.
• The slooooooooooooooow burn. I understand building anticipation but, this was so drawn out that I almost did not care if they ever got together. And the pay off was meh. Far too little, far too late.

If this had a bit of an accelerated burn, dropped the nicknames, and was edited by about 150 pages? It could have had 5 star read potential.

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aliyah_brz's review against another edition

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funny mysterious sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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jhaneveauguste's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional funny inspiring lighthearted reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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chuchi's review against another edition

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emotional funny inspiring medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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cariam's review against another edition

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hopeful sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

5.0

Besides being a cross between a sunshine-meets-grumpy trope and a story of a girl working on herself, this is most definitely a sweetly powerful story about dealing with grief. Zapata created deep characters and showed love through characters in ways that are always overlooked by other authors.

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