About the book:
Beautiful, headstrong Marcella Scimenti has the affection of a handsome neighborhood boy, the love of her large Italian family, and serious dreams of singing in Hollywood. But the course of true love nor the journey to finding one s true self never did run smooth. “In America” follows the story of Marcella, the daughter of the characters at the center of Nina Romano s continent-spanning Wayfarer Trilogy, as she comes of age in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, in the late 1920s. In the trilogy s heartwarming conclusion, Marcella must learn to balance new friendships, promising suitors, and life as a modern working girl with the expectations of her tradition-bound family, all against the backdrop of a looming economic depression and a changing world. Along the way, she unearths a devastating family secret that shakes her to her core and tests the boundaries of her love, loyalty, and faith.”
My Review:
I rarely review book with a low star rating, and I prefer to never have to. However, as much as I wanted to love and enjoy this book I could not.
I did really love the Italian food descriptions. It was well described to the point you felt you could taste it in your mouth. However, the positives did not move beyond that too much. The flip flop between the two characters ended up feeling choppy, broken up and just ill thought out. The focus on sex felt forced, like the author was attempting to make it “sexy” without really being that way, but then you felt like you were hearing private thoughts of someone you really didn’t know well, and someone you didn’t care enough about to know that much about them.
Although I didn’t enjoy the book, I did like the father/daughter relationship and found that to be a good come away feeling from the book. Perhaps someone else will read this book and find that it just hits the spot for them.