Reviews with content warning for Death of parent - Love & Gelato. Vacanță la Florența

Sonia met my eyes in the mirror. "You know, people come to Italy for all sorts of reasons, but when they stay, it's for the same two things."
"What?"
"Love and gelato."

Woww, I have no complaints about this book. It's been a long time since I picked up a ya contemporary and I don't regret it at all. I'm telling you, you should read this. It's got Italy, gelato, pastries, pizza, a main character who loves food. The writing is easy and humorous I was laughing constantly. The love interest was cute and so was the romance.

So many themes were covered in the book : grief, breakups, toxic relationships, finding your passion, to name a few. As someone who's struggled with grief before, I find the way it's described to be quite accurate. I loved every character, even Mimi. And Howard was just-- I'll just leave it at that.

Point is, if you haven't read this, please do. I promise you won't regret it.

Content Warnings

cressth's review against another edition

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lighthearted medium-paced

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

2.5

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hapalyn's review against another edition

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inspiring lighthearted medium-paced

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

5.0

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brianareads's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious relaxing medium-paced

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

2.75

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madsmcw_reads's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

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

4.5

I really fell in love with Lina and her story. I started this two days before Father's Day and I went in a little blind not knowing about the loss of a parent storyline, but Lina and her story captivated me and I didn't know how much I needed her. I felt seen in her feelings or grief and thought it was handled so well. I loved Lina and Ren, that part of the story just warmed my heart. This also seriously made me feel like I was in Italy with it's descriptions. So good, highly recommend!

Content Warnings

sydneynorrie's review against another edition

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adventurous inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

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

5.0

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nebraskanwriter's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

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

0.25

This book was just not for me. There were so many things that happened that I just could not stand.

Lina getting assaulted by that guy in the nightclub but no one bats an eye. Her traumatic meeting with X and yet she moves on like everything is fine.

There were just so many traumatic things that happen to her that the other characters don’t care to see if she is actually okay and that she herself processes for like 2 seconds and then moves on with immediately like a very scarring/damaging thing just did not happen to her.

Also, the ending? You’re kidding me. I know its a young adult romance and so I wasn’t expecting too much but so many things happened (in the span of a week, this book takes place over a week) that I just couldn’t believe. Lorenzo breaks up with a girl he’s been in love with for 2 years because he met Lina (literally yesterday) and now she’s the love of his life even though he barely knows her.

Also if you’ve just met someone, why would you let them read your mom’s journal? Lina literally meets Lorenzo and just dumps all this personal life stuff on him and he asks to read her mom’s journal which details all the painful, personal things her mom went through. Lorenzo is a complete stranger and yet you’re trusting him with such personal information regarding your deceased mother that you yourself just discovered?

I don’t know, I can suspend my belief for a little bit but all of this happening in the span of a week? Ridiculous. I’m sorry, I’m not usually so negative about books but there were so many things in this book, traumatic things, that were just handled so awfully. And on top of it all she falls in love with a boy in literally a week and he drops his girlfriend so he can be with a girl he’s literally known for a couple of days.

And then at the very end she decides to move to Italy to stay with Howard and be with Lorenzo (let me reiterate *grabs megaphone* ALL WHILE ONLY KNOWING ALL THE PEOPLE IN THIS STORY FOR LITERALLY A WEEK)

The whole thing was just too unbelievable for me.

Content Warnings

readbeales's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional lighthearted relaxing medium-paced

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

2.5

I can’t say this book was good but it did get me out of a reading slump!

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