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A review by juliannecridlin
One Italian Summer by Rebecca Serle
5.0
This is the first book I've read that has made me cry; not from sadness or intense emotion, but from the familiarity and love within its pages.
From the get-go of the book, I felt a sense of connection to the story - the deep relationship between a mother and child, and the sense of codependency in that relationship. I yearn to know more about my mother before she knew me, to know who she was as a younger woman. I want to know the intensity of the love she has for herself and how she learned to love herself. But as this book shows, we cannot ever truly know our parents.
I appreciated the lack of mystery and the lack of explanation for how the story unfolded. Being left with the epiphany of loving oneself as a person in their own right, having agency over your own life, and being who you are for the sake of being who you are is exactly what I needed from the book.
Contemporary fiction is not one I would normally find myself reading, let alone feeling like my life has been changed, but yet, here I am, writing this review, wiping the tears from my face and wishing I was in Positano with my mother, like we've always dreamed, loving ourselves and understanding each other.
This story felt magical, and like it was my own. I'm taking away the message to love myself and do things for myself and for the sake of doing them.
From the get-go of the book, I felt a sense of connection to the story - the deep relationship between a mother and child, and the sense of codependency in that relationship. I yearn to know more about my mother before she knew me, to know who she was as a younger woman. I want to know the intensity of the love she has for herself and how she learned to love herself. But as this book shows, we cannot ever truly know our parents.
I appreciated the lack of mystery and the lack of explanation for how the story unfolded. Being left with the epiphany of loving oneself as a person in their own right, having agency over your own life, and being who you are for the sake of being who you are is exactly what I needed from the book.
Contemporary fiction is not one I would normally find myself reading, let alone feeling like my life has been changed, but yet, here I am, writing this review, wiping the tears from my face and wishing I was in Positano with my mother, like we've always dreamed, loving ourselves and understanding each other.
This story felt magical, and like it was my own. I'm taking away the message to love myself and do things for myself and for the sake of doing them.