“Benvenuto in Italia.”

If Google translate is correct, because I took German in high school, that should say “Welcome to Italy.” If it is not correct, please feel free to correct me.

Italy. The home to Rome. Romeo and Juliet. The magical place where people dream of going. For some people, it’s a reality, but not in the dream way. Lina has something happen to her what no one wants to happen to them. She loses her mom. An not in an accident, but from cancer. It’s a pretty bad day when that happens, no matter who dies.

“But what about those really bad days? The kind that are so pumped up and awful that they chew up the things you care about just for the fun of spitting them back in your face.”

I’m sure everyone has some of those days. But do those days end up with you flying half way across the world to live with someone that you have never met? Well that happened to Lina. She gets sent to live near Florence, Italy with her “father”? But hey Italy is supposed to be full of hot guys right? Take Ren for example.

“He was my age, maybe a little older, and he was at least three months overdue for a hair cut. He wore shorts and a soccer jersey.”

“He sounded American, but he looked about as Italian as a plate of meatballs. Medium height, olive skin, and a distinct nose.”

“He had deep brown eyes infringed with ridicously long eyelashes, and when he smiled he had a little gap between his front teeth.”

Or my favorite, Thomas.

“Thomas was tall and thin with dark brown hair and thick eyebrows, and he had this strong-jaw thing going on that I’d heard about but never actually witnessed. And his lips. They were pretty much ruining any chance I had of forming words.”

“He had a British accent.

A British. Accent.”

Either one of them sounds like a person that would be interesting to explore someone’s past with. Which is exactly what Ren and Lina do. They explore Florence together while following her mother’s footsteps of the past.

“It was like walking through a scene from an Italian movie. The street was lined with clothing stores and little coffee shops and restaurants, and people kept calling to one another from windows and car.”

They also get to know and understand each other. To Lina, Ren is the first person to look at her like a person and not a pity case.

“Not only was this the first time anyone had ever asked me that [how it feels losing her mom], but he was looking at me like he actually wanted to know.”

Like all people and friends, they have their ups and downs. But after sometime they make up. And of course they end up together. Because you know what they say?

“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.”

If you are looking for  a light and fluffy romance Book, this is the one for you. This book is one that doesn’t make you think but will tug on your heartstrings at the same time. It’s such a cute book.

This book got a four point seven five mainly because of how adorable it was and there were no mistakes that my brain did not immediately fix, if there were any. If you have not read what this book is about some of my final words will be these:

“Lina is spending the summer in Tuscany, but she isn’t in the mood for Italy’s famous sunshine and fairy-tale landscape. She’s only there because it was her mother’s dying wish that she get to know her father. But what kind of father isn’t around for sixteen years? All Lina wants to do is get back home.

But then Lina is given a journal that her mom had kept when she lived in Italy. Suddenly Lina’s uncovering a magical world of secret romances, art and hidden bakeries. A world that inspires Lina, along with the ever-so-charming Ren, to follow in her mother’s footsteps and unearth a secret that has been kept from Lina for far to long. It’s a secret that will change everything she knew about her mother, her father-and herself.

People come to Italy for love and gelato, someone tells her, but sometimes they discover much more.”

Here is Lina’s view from her bedroom window:

And gelato, which is delicious by the way. I always choose it over ice cream when the chance is available.