Review by cherrygray - Love & Gelato

cherrygray 's review for:

Love & Gelato by Jenna Evans Welch

3.25

emotional funny hopeful lighthearted sad fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

There's a lot to address with this book. For one, it was incredibly cheesy and i kept getting embarrassed on behalf of the characters. Mostly Lina. This story essentially follows two timelines, Lina's Present-day timeline in Florence, Italy. And her mom, Hadley's past timeline 17 years in the past in Florence, Italy.
I wish I could give this book more of a better rating but it just didn't hit the 4/5 mark, it barely hit the 3.5/5 mark, in all honesty.

Currently unable to make a cohesive sentence, I'm going to put this into a pro/con list. From this point on their will be minor spoilers, but nothing to give away the plot too much. Read with caution.

PRO: Very funny and heartwarming story. 2)Filled with characters that are easy to follow and get to know, both present and past.

CON: Many situations were overlooked and bypassed, and frankly just brought up to make a segway between other characters. 1) For example: in the first few chapters, Lina is out jogging and gets chased and harassed by some dudes in a car. Now this felt like it could've had potential to bring around and connect back into the story, like if it were Thomas's car. It was really only used to give Lorenzo some fear of Howard. 1b) Another example: When Lena got groped in Space. while these are both very realistic things that happened i feel like it could've been used to add to the plot other than making Lina not want to go back to Space again (which is reasonable.) 2) I loved the characters, except for Matteo. I'd love to type so many profanities at him but that's beside the point. Mimi had no substance. She lacked personality other than to pose the purpose and play the part of the mean model chick. 3) I get that this book was meant to keep a lighthearted/happy tone but there could've been more to tap into with Matteo and Hadley's relationship and how toxic it was. 4) Matteo is a con. Lina using Thomas to get to the party is a con. Mimi's lack of personality is a con. How little we see outside of Howard/Lina/Ren/and Hadley('s previous life) is a con.

All in all, I did enjoy reading this book and annotating it. It was cute and romantic and cheesy and just easy to follow along with. It brought me through my emotions and left me satisfied with the ending. Frankly, I don't think I'd recommend this to anyone but if you read it then you've read it, if you don't I do not think you're missing out on anything that special.

Content Warnings