Love and Gelato Rant Review

TW: Parent dying, toxic relationships

 

Another huge disappointment...

Love and Gelato by Jenna Evans Welch is about Lina, who just lost her single mother. Her mother's final wish was for Lina to visit the country she went to college, which was Italy. Apparently Lina's birth father is in Italy, too, and Lina can't believe she's finally meeting him. His name is Howard and he lives and works in a cemetery, much to Lina's surprise. Howard's coworker Sonia gives Lina her mother's journal when she lived and studied in Italy. Lina decides to read through it, as her mother didn't talk much about Italy and her father. One thing that stands out to her is her mother wrote down on one of the pages "I made a terrible mistake". Line tries to figure out what mistake her mother made living in Italy that made her go back to the US. While this is all happening, Lina then meets and starts hanging out with a guy her age who lives down the street from Howard, who is named Lorenzo. He sometimes goes by Ren. She and Ren decide to solve the mystery of her mother and father. It leads them to discovering something rather...shocking. At the same time, Lina gets entangled in Ren's friend group from his international school, and more drama ensues from there. 

It sounds like a cool story, right? Well, only the first half was good, the second half is where it all fell apart. I can't really explain it because it'll get into spoilers and these reviews are spoiler-free, but let's just say what happened between Lina's mother and father is really disturbing. Her father is not who she thought he was. Then that drama is swept under the rug for love drama between Lina and Lorenzo, and it isn't even well written! Their relationship was so bad, and the ending infuriated me.

So yeah, two stars. I see so much praise for this book, and I seriously wonder if I was even reading the same book as everyone else. 

If you want a better romance story set in a European country over the summer, read Kisses and Croissants by Anne-Sophie Johanneau instead!