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Love & Gelato
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A summer in Italy turns into a road trip across Tuscany in this sweeping New York Times bestseller filled with romance, mystery, and adventure.
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 for far too long. It’s a secret that will change everything Lina knew about her mother, her father—and even herself.
People come to Italy for love and gelato, someone tells her, but sometimes they discover much more.
Kirkus Reviews called Love & Gelato “a sure bet for fans of romance fiction,” while VOYA said readers “will find it difficult to put this book down.” Readers are about to discover a new place, a new romance, and a new talent.
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 for far too long. It’s a secret that will change everything Lina knew about her mother, her father—and even herself.
People come to Italy for love and gelato, someone tells her, but sometimes they discover much more.
Kirkus Reviews called Love & Gelato “a sure bet for fans of romance fiction,” while VOYA said readers “will find it difficult to put this book down.” Readers are about to discover a new place, a new romance, and a new talent.
Book Actions
Start ReadingBook Information
Love & Gelato
Description
A summer in Italy turns into a road trip across Tuscany in this sweeping New York Times bestseller filled with romance, mystery, and adventure.
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 for far too long. It’s a secret that will change everything Lina knew about her mother, her father—and even herself.
People come to Italy for love and gelato, someone tells her, but sometimes they discover much more.
Kirkus Reviews called Love & Gelato “a sure bet for fans of romance fiction,” while VOYA said readers “will find it difficult to put this book down.” Readers are about to discover a new place, a new romance, and a new talent.
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 for far too long. It’s a secret that will change everything Lina knew about her mother, her father—and even herself.
People come to Italy for love and gelato, someone tells her, but sometimes they discover much more.
Kirkus Reviews called Love & Gelato “a sure bet for fans of romance fiction,” while VOYA said readers “will find it difficult to put this book down.” Readers are about to discover a new place, a new romance, and a new talent.
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Reviews
In the wake of her mother's death, Lina has been shipped to Italy for the summer to meet the father she didn't know existed. Lina is less than wild about the idea, but even with her consuming grief, Italy has its charms. And when an old acquaintance of her mom's gives Lina the journal her mom wrote while she was living in Italy, Lina becomes consumed by the mystery of how her mom and dad ended up where they did.A charming YA romance that includes some heavy issues. The depictions of Lina's grief are well done and Welch also describes Italy beautifully, which is sure to ignite some wanderlust in its readers. While the mystery around her mom's time in Italy wasn't super mysterious for me, watching Lina come to the conclusions I had already reached was still great fun. Definitely an appealing read-alike for fans of [Anna and the French Kiss].
Rating: 4Lina travels to Tuscany, Italy, to honor her mother's dying wish -- that Lina get to know the father she's never known. When Lina arrives there, she's given a journal that her mother kept while living in Italy long ago. Lina absorbs her mother's journal slowly, discovering from her mother's entries what it is to fall in love and the consequences that come from choices made in the past. While Lina tours the countryside and the nearby city of Florence, she meets and finds herself attracted to more than one boy. There's an especially good friend, Lorenzo -- who is half-American and prefers to be called Ren -- and then there's hot and handsome Brit, Thomas. From her mother's secrets and experiences revealed in journal, Lina learns how to navigate the rough waters in the sea of love. But love comes in many forms, and also pulling the story along is the way in which the father-figure relationship between Howard -- the man Lina's mother wanted her to know -- and Lina grows. LOVE & GELATO would be a good book to have on your summer reading list. Not just for YA readers, it would certainly appeal to anyone who likes a little romance with their reading, either while at home or if on a beach chair by the water.
Rating: 4Carolina's mother's deathbed wish is for Lina to go to Italy. Lina's not sure why she has to travel halfway around the world at a time when she is already stressed and grieving, but she goes to Florence to stay with Howard, one of her mother's old friends from her own time in Italy. While there, Lina discovers many eye-opening facts about her mother's history, based on revelations from an old journal -- and she also embarks on an Italian romance of her own.Readers who enjoy stories of teen romance and European travel will probably enjoy this book. It's sweet, and only occasionally frustrating (the main character does make a few decisions at which I raised my eyebrows). I listened to the audiobook, and found it a pleasant listen.
Rating: 4
Such a cute book! The writing was a little less mature than I would have liked but it fit the story wonderfully.
Rating: 4I love it. A easy and exciting book. I recommend it
Rating: 5This book is getting rave reviews from most readers, but it never totally won me over. It was a cute story set in Italy, but I found the characters bland, the plot predictable and the story overly long.
Rating: 3Source: Barnes and NobleI don’t often have the experience of completely losing myself in contemporary stories. That privilege is usually reserved for fantasy and sci-fi. Something about world building and magic and escape, I’m sure.With that said, Jenna Evans Welch’ s Love & Gelato has changed that game. The bulk of the story takes place in one summer spent in Florence, through the eyes of high school studnet, Lina. She is making good on a promise she made to her mom (who recently passed due to pancreatic cancer) to visit her mom’s old friend and Lina’s biological dad who she has never met until stepping foot on Italian soil.Though that set up seems significantly charged for emotion and drama as it is, Lina finds herself thrust a little deeper into the past when an old friend of her mom gives her a journal that her mom kept during her own time in the city.Suddenly, everything Lina thought she knew turns inside out, bringing mystery, magic, and tears right along with her mother’s journal entries.The story is so well done that I definitly found myself drifting off to the gorgeous Tuscan countryside, wrapped up in artists, green hills, vineyards, and galleries. The setting itself is magical but the humans involved in both the present and past timelines are so three dimensional and substantial that I kept having to remind myself it was fiction.The cover doesn’t do the actual story justice as it looks like a fluffy little romance. It is truly deep in a soul-bearing way and filled with questions of identity, loyalty, and life purpose.It’s the perfect summer read in that it is adorable but it also has an incredible amount of real emotion worked in.I am off to find Welch’s second book, a spin-off about Ireland, which I’ve heard is also excellent. I highly recommend Love & Gelato if you haven’t already found yourself lost in its pages.
Rating: 4It was a pretty good story, but I feel like with just having Lina hear Howard out about her mother's past, or just reading her mother's journal in a sitting, she would have avoided a lot of the drama that ensued throughout. However, the journal did add to the plot by just building on her relationship with Lorenzo.
Rating: 3All the feels!
Rating: 5So many feels.
Rating: 5Jenna Evans Welch - daughter of Richard Paul Evans - writes with the same ability as her father; the ability to write prose that will tug at your heartstrings. Welch writes the story of sixteen year old Lina, a book meant for Young adults. But, she grabbed my (a senior's) attention too. Welch writes with a maturity and understanding that belies her age. Teenagers will benefit from reading this book about Lina, her dead mother, and her search for a father - a search that ends in her finding love and Gelato in Italy .LIna falls in love with Florence and like her mother finds that FLorence is the perfect place to fall in love, which means it is the perfect place to be heartbroken.Eventually she finds that every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end. What a deep realisation from such a young girl.
Rating: 5This is a very predictable young adult first romance novel in which 16-year-old Lina Emerson spends a summer in Tuscany, recapitulating a summer her recently deceased mother spent there before Lina was born. What makes this book enjoyable is the Italian setting and the sense of humor of the main character.The author apparently spent her high school years in Florence. Clearly she loves Italy, and it shows in her rhapsodic tribute to everything Tuscan, including of course the gelato.
Rating: 4Romance. In Italy. Lovely.Lina’s mother, Hadley, is diagnosed with inoperable cancer; when she dies, she wants Lina to live with Howard in Italy because he’s the best man she’s ever known. Chapter two begins four months after her mother’s death, so there’s no sad death scenes. Lina arrives in Italy, meets Howard, and is determined to move back to the States to live with her best friend. Life quickly changes. Lina finds herself living in a cemetery because Howard is the caretaker of a memorial to American soldiers; it’s a beautiful place, but it’s difficult to look at grave stones after her mom’s death. Going for a quick run, she meets Ren, the nearby neighbor. He invites her to hang out with him and his friends who all attend the American school. Lina doesn’t have time to be bored; there’s always a party in interesting places. She’s particularly fond of Thomas, the really good looking British guy who seems to like her as well. She’s having a great time with these new people and experiencing new activities. Lina, though, really wants to learn about her mother.Lina never knew her mother ever lived in Italy or knew anyone in Italy. Howard’s friend gives Lina the journal Hadley mailed to Italy before she died. Lina spends her time reading about her mom and her romance in Italy that resulted in Lina. She and Ren visit the places her mom visited. Both Hadley and Lina experience the true world of Florence, Italy, and find romance.I loved reading this book. You absolutely feel like you are in Italy--the author lived in Florence, so the scenes are vivid. You’ll want to move there as soon as you finish reading! There are parallel love stories with Hadley that resulted in her pregnancy with Lina and then Lina’s romance with her beau. I love a good romance and I love travel. The novel’s pace is just about perfect and the trip to Italy is a great escape with a happy ending!
Rating: 5When Lina’s mother, photographer Hadley Emerson, is on her death bed, she makes Lina promise her one thing: that she will spend a year in Florence. Hadley’s year there was the best year she ever had. She then begins talking about Howard, a boyfriend who still lives in Florence, who she has never mentioned in Lina’s seventeen year life. Lina begins to wonder why Howard is being brought up all of the sudden.Hadley dies in the middle of the school term and Lina decides to finish out the term living at her best friend Addie’s house. Before she is reluctantly ready to go, her grandmother tells her that Howard is actually her father. How could this be…that he could be her father and never, ever contacted her?It is with reluctance and trepidation that Lina flies off to meet her father for the first time.There is something to be said for the predictable…as long as it’s readable, both of which are Love & Gelato, Jenna Evans Welch’s debut novel. Of course, how could you be in Florence (or any part of Italy for that matter) and not meet up with romance and heartbreak? Lina meets up with both.Welch also throws in a few (predictable) curves but that doesn’t diminish Love & Gelato‘s enjoyment factor. Lina and her love interest, Ren, are good characters, as is Howard. If you’ve ever been to Italy (as I was a long, long time ago), the book conjures up some of those long forgotten memories and visuals.And you can’t forget the taste of gelato. Even thinking about it makes my mouth water. So, even though winter is closing in, there is always room for gelato…and love.
Rating: 4I purchased this book from Half Priced Books and read it with my bestie @mycornerforbooksand. All opinions are my own. ?????Love and Gelato by Jenna Evans Welch. A wonderfully written summer feeling read is just what you need in the middle of February. 16 year old Lina just lost her mom in a battle with pancreatic cancer and her mom's dying wish was for Lina to go to Italy. Lina after finishing her sophomore year of high school in Seattle agrees to go spend the summer with her biological Dad but has no intention of staying past the summer, but as one will find out falling in love with Italy or falling in love in Italy pull your heart into a place where you find so much more than intended. Lina's Mom mailed a piece of her past before Lina's arrival and chasing those pieces leads Lina on a path she must find answers for. Oh and there's pizza and Gelato what teenager can even resist that? Review also posted on Instagram @borenbooks, Library Thing, Goodreads/StacieBoren, Amazon, Twitter @jason_stacie and my blog at readsbystacie.com
Rating: 5This book was so stinkin' cute! I admit for the longest time, I put off getting it because I really thought it would be terrible (because I really don't like contemporary mainly and it just didn't sound that interesting to me.) *waits for the angry crowd to quiet down* Horrible of me, I know. Happy to let y'all know, I was totally wrong about that. Lol. Everyone I know whether they were on goodreads, Instagram, Facebook, pretty much everyone who had the book long before me, absolutely loved this book. So I broke down and bought it. So. Freaking. Glad. I Did. Love & Gelato was beautiful. It's this magical thing (for lack of a better word) that makes you feel like you are really there. You are Lina. Every up and down she goes through just rips at your heart and doesn't let go. There is no possible way you can actually put the book down because .. well... there is just no way. Lol You want to know what happens. You NEED to know. Every character is unforgettable. I have never read a book before where I can remember every character big OR little because they made such a impact. I only had one single issue with this book and that was the whole Ren and Lina bit at the end. I hated that people all knew he had a girlfriend and they still told Lina to "go for it!" to try to win him. Like he is a prize or something. That just bugs me. The whole "go for it" bit was almost enough to ruin this book for me because you are legit telling her it is okay to flirt/hit-on someone who is already in a relationship. Which made me see Lina as a homewreaker. It turned my stomach. I wanted to stop reading but I am glad it all worked out in the end. But it still doesn't change the fact that these grown-ups were telling her that it was totally okay to pursue him. I can see WHY they did but that still doesn't make it right. That was literally the only problem I had with this book. Besides that, it was a gripping, heart tugging, unforgettable ride. I wish I could put my feelings into words about how the ending felt. It was bittersweet. Like seeing a friend off, who is about to start this amazing life. It gives you warm fuzzy feelings but is also kinda sad.I loved this book. I would recommend it.
Rating: 43.5/5 starsThis was a really cute book! I really enjoyed Lina as a main character, and how her story unfolded. The writing was great, and I liked how the journal entries were done throughout the book. The romance and plot were really cute too, and I liked how Lina's relationship with Howard developed as well. The only thing I wish happened was that it took place over a longer period of time.Overall, this was really cute, had a great romance and a really interesting plot line.
Rating: 3"Love and Gelato" (LG). First things first - the very best ice cream/gelato/frozen dessert is Haagen Dazs Vanilla. Second place is Haagen Dazs Con De Leche, and third place is Haagen Dazs Rum Raisin. Now before all you gelato lovers get your panties in a twist let me say that I like most gelato. I have had gelato in Italy and in the US. A lot of gelato. Some of it is better than some ice creams, and vice versa. I will also add that I have seen lots of Italy and like most tourists I fell in love with Italy and with most things Italian, including Limoncello, Pisa, Florence, the Uffizi, and David. But let's not get all crazy about an over-priced dessert just because it's Italian and because it's the fad of the moment. So chill, everyone.Unfortunately, I'm not as enthusiastic about LG. It's ok as a YA novel goes but it's really just another dessert - light, tasty, refreshing for a few moments, forgettable. High schooler Lina loses her Mom to cancer and following one of Mom's last wishes flies off to Tuscany to spend time with the mysterious Howard. But what was Mom's relationship to hunky Howard? Friend? Lover? Father of her only child? It seems the answer might be found in a journal that Mom sent to Howard sometime back. Lina pours through it seemingly a few pages at a time, sharing her findings with the reader (one of her friends goes through it in two hours!) And so the story slowwwlllyyyy enfolds. Anyway, Lina quickly encounters the Love of her life - that would be Lorenzo, or is it Thomas? They have the usual teen-age spats, and say really stupid things to each other.I note that some of these YA things label their work "For ages 12 and up" I would like to suggest a new approach - how about "For ages 14 and down"
Rating: 3This book makes my heart giddy and so warm, ugh! I absolutely love Ren and Lina and would
totally love a follow up on their story.
Rating: 5totally love a follow up on their story.
Come on-- is a book that combines love and gelato in the title going to be bad?A delightful read.
Rating: 4Sixteen-year-old Lina is spending the summer in Italy only because it was her mother's dying wish that she get to know Howard, a father she's never met. Lina just wants to go home, but once she's given a journal that her mother kept when she lived in Italy all those years ago, she seems to uncover the magical side of the country. But why did her mother write “I made the wrong choice”? Luckily she's not on her own to figure that out - her new (and cute) friend Ren is there with her to help her along the way.
A cute cover for a cute story. I inhaled this book. I loved the writing. Of course I loved the setting! Italy is so rich with history and gorgeous old buildings and art, and the food is the best. I found the characters to be real and believable. I can't even imagine being in Lina's shoes. I can't wait to get my hands on Love & Luck which is about Lina's best friend Addie.
Rating: 5A cute cover for a cute story. I inhaled this book. I loved the writing. Of course I loved the setting! Italy is so rich with history and gorgeous old buildings and art, and the food is the best. I found the characters to be real and believable. I can't even imagine being in Lina's shoes. I can't wait to get my hands on Love & Luck which is about Lina's best friend Addie.