It is not an easy process, and Welch does an excellent job portraying the emotions that consume Lina. But through this story, the reader can see the slow healing process Lina endures to be at peace within herself.
In a way, it is easy to relate to Lina’s circumstances, because everyone refuses to accept grief and sadness. What I appreciate about this book is its portrayal of grief and emotions, as the world of its characters collides. Also, the journal adds a unique and engaging element to the story as a whole. This book offers funny and endearing interactions between its characters that make it unique, and it’s hard not to get emotional with Lina who is constantly reminded of her mother in another country and its people.
The relationship that her mother forms with Ren proves to be more than friendship. Still traumatized by the death of her only parental figure, Lina learns to cope with the pain of her past, and works to uncover the figures in her mother’s life, such as the mysterious “X”, in the entrancing atmosphere of Italy. This emotional and romantically suspenseful book goes beyond a typical teenage romance. And she is torn about her mother’s past as well, with only her mother’s journal to guide her journey. On the other hand, Lina navigates a foreign world, where she is skeptical of the man she has to call father. As father and daughter piece together the mysteries of her mother’s memories, Lina learns about herself as she does about her mother, and uncovers a secret buried far beyond her mother’s past.
However, through her mother’s journal, Lina also experiences Italy, a place of love and gelato, with the ever-charming Ren at her side. Leaving behind her grandmother and best friend in Seattle, Lina sets out on a journey of discovery and meets her father Howard, who strangely happens to be a caretaker of a graveyard. To fulfill her dying mother’s wish, Lina finds herself in Tuscany for the summer, where she gets to know the father who has been absent her whole life.
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