Reviews tagging 'Sexual assault'

Love & Gelato by Jenna Evans Welch

17 reviews

il0veb00ks's review

funny hopeful lighthearted mysterious relaxing medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Minor: Sexual harassment and Sexual assault

auroraaa's review

adventurous emotional funny lighthearted medium-paced

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

5.0

AAAAA READ THIS BOOK!!!!!! Lina and Ren had AMAZING chemistry throughout the whole book! Also, I loved the drama of that journal. I read this with my friend as a buddy read which made it more fun. So fun to talk about the book while reading it. ANYWAYS!! If you are looking for a fun YA book to read over the summer, I would recommend this ALL THE WAYYY!! Such a cute book. Only complaint is that it took about 110ish pages for me to really get into it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent

Moderate: Sexual assault and Sexual harassment

eedle_cacleberry's review

adventurous funny hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

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

2.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Cancer, and Death of parent

Moderate: Sexual assault and Sexual harassment

salsbookcorner's review

3.5

Feels like an Italian Mamma Mia and I definitely preferred this over the film

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Content Warnings

Minor: Sexual assault and Cancer

rylin_marie's review

adventurous emotional hopeful lighthearted relaxing medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent

Moderate: Pedophilia, Alcohol, Grief, Alcoholism, Chronic illness, Sexual assault, and Sexual harassment

saltyglasses's review

emotional funny lighthearted medium-paced

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

1.75

Pretty lighthearted book where girl travels to Italy to be with her father and learns more about her family there. Even though it is a romance book I felt as though the focus was more on familal love than the romance itself, which is not a bad thing. While it definitely was quite a fun read, the more I think about the plot points in the book, the more questiomable I find the entire story. 

Firstly, the whole thing about finding her real dad was so incredibly frustrating because WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU NOT READ THE WHOLE DIARY BEFORE FINDING SOME RANDOM STRANGER WHO MAY OR MAY NOT BE YOUR DAD??? I really don't understand the way the main character just goes and does things spontaneously without getting the full picture. In fact the beyond obvious foreshadowing made this really hard to get through at times, not the mention the cheesy writing style (no one talks like this) 
Secondly, I feel like there was a lot of problematic ideas that were included in the story. The story ends with Ren  breaking up with Mimi to be with Lina, but throughout the entire book they kept on describing scenes where Ren was definitely acting romantically interested and overly friendly with Lina (obviously given that he has feelings for her) Everything about this entire plot point gives off cheating vibes and I don't get why this was necessary? The author could have continued making Mimi a crush instead of semi condoning cheating. Also the fact that Lina led Thomas on thinking she was interested in him when she was looking for Ren the entire time is really scummy. And I cannot end this without mentioning the scene where Lina gets groped by a man and Mimi defends her but thenn blames her for not "pushing him away harder"??? Why is there victim blaming in this book? Why was this scene necessary in any way when the author goes on to portray Mimi as a vilain?

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Sexual assault

cheating

greenlivingaudioworm's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny lighthearted mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Abandonment, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Death of parent, Grief, Cancer, Emotional abuse, Pregnancy, Toxic relationship, and Sexual assault

christygsp's review

emotional hopeful lighthearted reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Loveable characters? Yes

3.5

Super cute and fun story.   

It was funny in parts, moving in parts, and a story about finding who you are and falling in love. Almost like all the stories rolled into one, and done beautifully. 


Contains grief, a few tame kissing scenes, and an attempted assault. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer and Grief

Minor: Sexual assault

shannasbooksnhooks's review

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

"You've had bad days before, right? You know, the ones where your alarm doesn't go off, your toast practically catches on fire, and you remember way too late that every article of clothing you own is soaking wet in the bottom of the washer?"
Finishing up the book and writing this review has sort of been a confusing time for me. I really didn't know what star rating to give it. I knew it was at least 4 stars but wasn't quite 5 stars. And then I couldn't decide if I should do 4.25, 4.5, or 4.75 stars, so I ended up just settling on 4 stars.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, which is why I think I'm in this confused state now. I never pick up books where the main genre is "romance." I have read plenty where romance has been a factor in the story, major or not. However, it's usually a sub-plot and/or sub-genre - not the main point of the book. Yet with Love & Gelato, it is. Although I think it being a "romance" book is a bit deceiving. The romantic plot of this book

especially between Ren, Lina, and Thomas

is more of a major sub-plot rather than the main plot of the story, which I really appreciated from this book and Jenna Evans Welch. I definitely recommend this as a read, especially if you like romance but aren't necessarily a big fan of soley-romance-based plots. As I mentioned, the fact that this book is a "romance book" is a bit deceiving if you consider the plots of romance books to be extremely romance-heavy (and only focusing on the romance, if you're like me). The characters are really amazing, the setting is beautiful, and it's a really good coming-of-age story. I've started to open up to books with more romance-heavy plots (like Natasha Lester's books or Lovely War). Love & Gelato really brought it home that I am ok with romance in books - it just can't be the sole plot, conflict, etc. of the book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Chronic illness, Death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Terminal illness, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Misogyny, Pregnancy, Sexual assault, and Sexual harassment

When Ren and Lina go to meet Matteo Rossi, Lina's biological father, it wasn't surprising that he was a total jerk given how Hadley (Lina's mom) wrote about him and how Francesca spoke of him.

And I was actually happy that Howard knew (second memorable scene for me). I was actually thinking of including the quote where he basically says that he's not her dad by blood/DNA, but he is her dad because he wants to be in her life and help her out. And Howard 1000% is her father in this sense. I was neutral about Howard until this scene.

As I hinted at earlier, there was, sort of, a bit of "romantic drama" between Ren, Lina, and Thomas. Thankfully, it wasn't a cliched love triangle. It started out seeming that way, but you really see that, as time goes on, Thomas is there more as a distraction for Lina from Ren. And I enjoyed when Thomas called Lina out on that at Valentina's 18th birthday party - because it was a low blow. But I also liked how he just let it blow over because he understood and it didn't turn into this whole drama.

marie_reads_again's review against another edition

emotional hopeful mysterious sad medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual harassment

Moderate: Sexual assault, Death of parent, and Cancer