Author: Lauren Henderson
I did it! I finally finished Flirting In Italian! This took me longer to read than I had initially expected and the reason why is because I started to get bored and annoyed with the story a little bit before the half way point. I have a problem though were I cannot put a book down once I start it with few exceptions.
Flirting In Italian is the story about Violet who travels to Italy after seeing a painting of an Italian girl that looks just like her. Violet just has to know more about this painting! She also starts to wonder if she was adopted and is really Italian because she looks nothing like her Scandinavian mother or Scottish father. Violet herself loves art history and uses this as a pretense to get her mother to agree to send her to an etiquette school in Italy. At the school she meets another British girl and two American girls. They sort of become friends and go to parties with Italian boys together.
I loved all of the art talk at the beginning which is why I was excited to read this book at first. I also loved the way that the author described Italy when Violet and the three other girls where being driven to the estate. It made me want to book a flight and go there myself!
I started to dislike the book when it became all about the boys and more specifically, all about Violet's crush, Luca. I knew that there was going to be a lot of flirting and making out with cute Italian guys but the actual plot of the story that was set up in the beginning (the mysterious painting) seemed to have been completely forgotten now.
The characters also became quickly irritating.
All of the Italian women were bitches! Seriously. Every single Italian woman that Violet and her friends met were perfectly beautiful and secretly made fun of the foreign girls in Italian. I don't know how Violet knew this since she doesn't exactly speak Italian but she does.
Speaking of the Italian language, I love how there is so much of it in the book! I have to wonder if enough of it was translated though. If you know some basic Italian like me you'll be able to get the gist of things but for someone who doesn't know any Italian, it might be more annoying.
There were a few other smaller things that annoyed me as I was reading the book. Mostly the stereotypes of the American girls and Italian boys, Violet being a mary sue and Violet's (fake) crying at Kelly being poor and having a tough life while Violet didn't even think about how much the trip to Italy cost. I don't feel bad for you Violet!
By the end of the book I was starting to lose all hope of ever finding the plot again. Maybe Henderson was saving it for the next book. But then the plot showed up again when they finally visit the estate where the painting is. So, the girls go there and everyone comments on how much Violet looks like the girl in the painting. Then someone tried to kill Violet. Yep. We find out who attempted to kill her at the end of the book too and everything seems resolved but I am still lost as to why and what exactly happened. I don't feel like it was a good wrap up to the book. Also, what does that leave for the next book? Is the second book nothing but Violet misunderstanding Luca and then making out with him? I'll pass on that.
Rating: 2 Chocolate Bar
No comments:
Post a Comment