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3.51 AVERAGE
3.51 AVERAGE
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
slow-paced
hopeful
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
reflective
medium-paced
I genuinely want to know if this woman has ever considered therapy. She writes about her mother not being fully there in the mind, but I think she needs a check too. She writes about people and then leaves them with nothing but a surface description, often revealing far too intimate details for only mentioning them on half a page, the loose threads of them all thoroughly annoy me. It is sweet she cares so much about books, but it gets to a point. Of course, i have to give it leeway due to it being a translation but even so, so many of the sentences were disjointed and clauses had nothing to do with one another and frankly? It's not a very enjoyable book in any sense of the word. There isn't much of plot, the characters are half formed and she leaves so many things half spoken. Also, she has a weird obsession with Lolita, she writes that her brother is the mold for men she loves in a romantic sense which is just odd and she states she used to pinch a baby until it cried - but it was completely fine because she was only 7. I do hope she considers going to therapy, or talking to someone about her issues rather than just letting them stew in such an awful book.
informative
inspiring
slow-paced
This book is a lovely book. A feel good type of book. Calm and soothing.
2.5
I normally don’t share my opinions, but here we go.
This is a memoir told through diary entries of a woman leaving her career and life in Florence to move back to her village of origin to open up its first bookshop.
Except this is only 20% of the book. The rest of the book is her telling half-finished stories about her friends and family and just complaining about the weather, covid, and life in general. This could have been a nice book if it were really about what the title suggests, but
I normally don’t share my opinions, but here we go.
This is a memoir told through diary entries of a woman leaving her career and life in Florence to move back to her village of origin to open up its first bookshop.
Except this is only 20% of the book. The rest of the book is her telling half-finished stories about her friends and family and just complaining about the weather, covid, and life in general. This could have been a nice book if it were really about what the title suggests, but
the mommy & daddy issues + kinda outdated politics + lack of talking about actually starting the bookstore did not sell me
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
The prose meanders a bit, but remains enjoyable.
I honestly was torn between 2 and 3 stars but rounding up because there are some poignant thoughts on literature and reading.
This memoir of a bookshop in a tiny town in Tuscany is sweet and hopeful. It's a light and positive chronicle of the origination and building of a bookshop on a hill in Italy.
But the writing was very disjointed. We follow the thread of several months day-to-day in the shop. My favorite parts where the ones where Donati told us what people were buying, what books she was ordering, and how reading affected her life and perspective.
But her writing about the random characters of the village and her family members was very hard to follow. We get some characterization of a few people, but otherwise it's very surface-level and doesn't add much to the narrative thread.
The other part of the memoir that was confusing - both disjointed AND repetitive, and not straightforward chronologically - was her memories of childhood and the history of trauma in her family (war and neglect, primarily). It's clear Donati wants to communicate how she is a survivor, and how books helped to bring solace to her life, but...I found those parts of the memoir less engaging. She repeats the same anecdote about her attic/tower many times, and being scared of the bathroom outside many times, but in a jumbled way. It was clear to me there was not enough distance for her to see this trauma clearly, which affected the writing of her memoir.
It's a sweet book if you love reading and bookshops. And if you're interested in manifesting/synchronicity/power of belief. Though, again, she sort of touched on these concepts on an anecdotal surface level.
It's also a time capsule discussing COVID and how it affected day-to-day life. (Which wasn't my favorite but could be interesting in the future.)
This memoir of a bookshop in a tiny town in Tuscany is sweet and hopeful. It's a light and positive chronicle of the origination and building of a bookshop on a hill in Italy.
But the writing was very disjointed. We follow the thread of several months day-to-day in the shop. My favorite parts where the ones where Donati told us what people were buying, what books she was ordering, and how reading affected her life and perspective.
But her writing about the random characters of the village and her family members was very hard to follow. We get some characterization of a few people, but otherwise it's very surface-level and doesn't add much to the narrative thread.
The other part of the memoir that was confusing - both disjointed AND repetitive, and not straightforward chronologically - was her memories of childhood and the history of trauma in her family (war and neglect, primarily). It's clear Donati wants to communicate how she is a survivor, and how books helped to bring solace to her life, but...I found those parts of the memoir less engaging. She repeats the same anecdote about her attic/tower many times, and being scared of the bathroom outside many times, but in a jumbled way. It was clear to me there was not enough distance for her to see this trauma clearly, which affected the writing of her memoir.
It's a sweet book if you love reading and bookshops. And if you're interested in manifesting/synchronicity/power of belief. Though, again, she sort of touched on these concepts on an anecdotal surface level.
It's also a time capsule discussing COVID and how it affected day-to-day life. (Which wasn't my favorite but could be interesting in the future.)