Book Review: Love & Gelato

Author: Jenna Evans Welch
Genre: Contemporary
Published: 2016, Simon Pulse
Rating: 3/5 Stars

After Lina's mother passes away, she is sent to live with the father she's never met in Florence. She's not too thrilled about spending the summer with her absentee father, even if it is a summer spent in Italy. Lina is given one of her mother's journals, and she discovers secrets about her mother's life in Florence that will change Lina's life forever. When she meets Ren, a charming Italian boy, things get even more complicated.

This book made me want to visit Italy so, so badly. The descriptions of the food and the countryside were just so enticing that I couldn't put this book down! From the title and cover you might expect a cute, lighthearted contemporary romance, and for the most part it is, but Love & Gelato delivers on more serious topics like grief and what it means to be a father.

I liked our main character Lina, but she didn't stand apart from the multitudes of other leading ladies in contemporary. But I at least didn't find her annoying, which already earns her a lot of bonus points. The side characters were pretty much one-dimensional, however. I wasn't convinced by Lina and Thomas's "sort-of" romance - he ended up being kind of a jerk anyway. And I'm still not sure how I feel about Ren. He was one of those typical YA characters who is hot and cold and terrible at communication, and that's something that for sure sends me into a reading-induced rage.

For a book titled Love & Gelato, there isn't a whole lot of love; the romance develops super late and I wasn't into it. I think I flew through this book because the setting was so fun to read about, plus it was an easy read, but it just didn't impress me much. I did enjoy my reading experience overall, and I would recommend this book to people who really like contemporaries or travel stories. If you're looking for a tremendously unique contemporary, this unfortunately isn't one.