A review by laurenlee2010
Hotel Portofino by J.P. O'Connell

2.0

Hotel Portofino has a fun story to follow with lots of interesting characters. Unfortunately, everything felt very fast and shallow - like too much had been packed into a 350-page book. There are too many characters with just a few lines filling us in on their tragic backstory. I had trouble keeping straight who everyone was, which woman had lost a husband in the war, which characters had money trouble, and which Italians did/did not speak English. The characters lack depth, there are too many plot lines for such a short book, and then book just…ends. Not on a cliffhanger, more like the writer just gave up. Even the main love story was a big “meh.” Only after finishing it did I find out the book is based on the miniseries & not vice-versa. It shows. I felt like I just read a very long Wikipedia summary of the miniseries’ episodes.