One Italian Summer

I wished I had enjoyed this book. Other readers did enjoy this book very much; therefore, I am going to chalk this one up to just not my tastes. While I explain my reasoning for my rating, keep an open mind because the things that bothered me may not be a big deal to you.

Katy’s mother, Carol, has just died and she is left without her rock, her best friend and supporter. To say Katy has lost everything thing is an understatement. She depended on her mother for everything despite being a grown, married woman herself.

Carol’s death happened just two weeks before their planned trip to Positano, Italy to celebrate Carol’s 60th birthday. At a loss on how to live without her mother, Katy decides to take the trip alone. Once there she show more discovers a much younger version of her mother. She sets out to discover more about this version of her mother she never knew existed.

Before I delve into the parts I didn’t like, I would like to talk about the things I did like. First, I loved the descriptions of the Italian coast, the food and life. It made me want to drop everything, pack a bag and go see for myself all the delights of this lovely seaside town.

I enjoyed the plot (for the most part) and thought the pacing was good. However, I was not a fan of how the time travel was handled. It read as an afterthought or that it just thrown in to make the plot work. If you time traveled, wouldn’t you notice things like old cars everywhere that looked new, no cell phones, that people dressed funny. I guess there was a time bubble just around Katy?? Yeah, I know it is fiction, but it has to be at least plausible in some parallel universe.

Then we had the relationship between Katy and Carol. Katy was so clingy it was to the point of being unhealthily. It felt like Katy, couldn't wipe her own behind without asking her mother for permission. The relationship described was well beyond clingy going into the scary and creepy territory. I'm still shuddering to think about it.

In short, I was disappointed in what could have been a great story. Though I feel uncomfortable recommending this book, I know a lot of people will enjoy it. Therefore, I suggest you decide for yourself.

I received a free copy, via Net Galley, in exchange for my honest review. For more of my reviews, and author interviews, please see my blog at www.thespineview.com. show less

I'm only halfway through with the book, but I have so many feelings about it that I had to get them down. Firstly, I have visited and love Positano, so any positive rating this book receives is for the lovely descriptions of the place and its food. But I really dislike the main character, Katy. I can't identify with someone who has never gone anywhere and eats at boring restaurants, always having the same meal, and who has never eaten at restaurant alone and would go to stay with her parents when her husband is out of town rather than stay alone in her own home. Who is this sad person? And I think (I'm not sure, since I find Katy so foreign) the relationship between Katy and her recently deceased mother is meant to be seen as a loving show more one (the "great love story" mentioned in the liner notes), but for me it is just sad...she doesn't seem to have an identity outside of being her mother's daughter, she "agrees" with every decision her mother makes and they become her decisions, she doesn't do things (like go all out for Halloween) because her mother can do it better so she just does her mother's thing...I just want to shake her and say, you can love your mother while also having a mind of your own!! And what kind of mother was she to never support her supposedly favorite person in the world to have her own identity? Not to mention that the trip to Positano (that her mother organized, based on her own trip there as a young adult) is stereotypically American tourist...all they do is go to beach clubs and hotel restaurants, and the only friend she makes while there is another American. It's kind of gross. Update: By the end of the book our heroine began to realize that her mother made a mistake by not helping her to have her own identity, but that is after she finds out her mother's secret and responds in a horrible, selfish, judgmental way, and then deals it with by cheating on her husband with her new American friend. But then the plot twist conveniently resolves itself with the revelation that her mother as a young woman has not stepped into Katy's present, but that Katy has stepped into her mother's past. So voila, her cheating happened with a man from the past who no longer exists in her present, so when her husband comes to find her in Italy everything can resolve itself between them and she conveniently doesn't have to mention her infidelity. Again, gross. show less

One Italian Summer was a must-read for me, not only because I loved Rebecca Serle's last book, In Five Years, but because of the stunning Italian setting of Positano on the Amalfi Coast.

There was something else that appealed to me about this book and that was what appeared to be a time travel element. Katy is mourning the loss of her mother, a woman who meant everything to her. This loss leaves her life in a suspended state and she leaves her husband behind to take a solo trip to Italy, the holiday she was meant to take with her mother, Carol. Whilst in Positano, who should Katy meet but Carol……30 years ago Carol!

The first half of this book wasn't quite what I was expecting, perhaps because Carol didn't play as big a part as I show more thought she would. By the second half, I'd settled into the story and was thoroughly enjoying the setting and the mouth-watering descriptions of food. Seeing Carol as a much younger woman helped Katy to deal with her grief and to lower the pedestal she'd placed her on. This is a story of mothers and daughters, the bond between them, and what happens when that bond is broken. It's also about understanding that nobody is perfect and that we all make mistakes.

I love time travel stories and I enjoyed joining the dots between the past and present. I also love Italy and I was thoroughly transported to Positano, Naples and Capri, to the clear blue sea, the intense heat, and the inviting eateries, all described beautifully by the author. Rebecca Serle writes such clever and original stories, ones which never turn out how I expected (this is a good thing!) and are full of emotion. I'm already wondering what her next book will be about. show less

One Italian Summer by Rebecca Serle is a heartfelt, magical read that left me deeply emotional. After losing my own mom, this story of a woman who travels to Italy and meets her mother—young and alive—hit especially close to home. I never got the chance to ask my mom about her past, so watching Katy connect with hers was both beautiful and bittersweet. Serle’s blend of grief, time travel, and self-discovery is tender and transformative. A must-read for anyone navigating loss or longing for connection.

In One Italian Summer, the story is related by the main character, Katy, in a first-person narrative. An only child, she briefly describes the torturous experience of caring for her terminally ill mother, Carol, during her last months and how the experience has left her bereft. The story opens on the last day of her mother's Shiva when, ironically, her husband, Eric, arrives at her parent's house with mail: two plane tickets to Italy. Carol and Katy were scheduled to take a trip to Positano, Italy, that they had long talked about and planned, so Katy could see the beautiful place where Carol spent one summer thirty years ago -- before she met Katy's father and settled into domesticity with a husband and child.

Katy decides that she will show more make the trip alone, and tells her devoted, doting, and very earnest husband, Eric, that she just doesn't know "if I can be married to you anymore." He assures her that, together, they can get through the grief of losing Carol and facing a future that does not include her. But Katy is incapable of envisioning the future without her mother. She and Eric met when they were twenty-two years old and married three years later. Except for a brief period when they relocated to New York, their lives have been spent living near Carol's parents. And Carol has been a constant force in their lives. Katy and Eric spent significant amounts of time with her parents, letting Carol cook for them, decorate the home they purchased, and drop by unannounced. Katy relied on her mother for everything, permitting Carol to provide advice and, essentially, make decisions that twenty-something women normally make for themselves. And ever-steadfast Eric tolerated all of it, taking Katy's parents into his own heart. He is also grieving Carol, but Katy does not have the emotional capacity to comfort him. Instead, she announces that their marriage might be over and she is going to Italy by herself.

To Katy's credit, she acknowledges that she has never before spent any time alone, having gone directly from her parents' home to a college dormitory and then living with Eric. She has no idea how to enjoy her own company and be completely on her own. Katy also acknowledges that she and Eric lack the skills to navigate this life transition because they have never experienced difficulty or adversity before. So Katy is quite literally facing the first traumatic event of her adult life . . . and handling it very badly because she is simply unequipped to cope. To that extent, One Italian Summer is completely believable. A woman who has led such a carefree, cocooned life, surrounded by love and feeling completely secure, could very easily come undone when the person she loves most in the world -- her mother -- dies.

Katy makes her way to the Poseidon Hotel in scenic Positano where the charming and helpful hotel staff, good wine, delicious food, ocean breezes, and picturesque town are all like balms for her soul. Of course, Katy meets Adam, a handsome fellow guest of the hotel who is attempting to negotiate purchasing it on behalf of his employer. The owner is resisting Adam's attempts, determined to maintain the family operation, even though the hotel is struggling financially. Adam is unlike Eric in virtually every way and their mutual attraction is strong. She spends time exploring Italy with him and is tempted by his advances. Will she resist and remain faithful to Eric?

Her mother had, characteristically, prepared a detailed itinerary for the trip, but Katy abandons it in favor of exploring on her own. And as she is doing so, she comes face to face with her own mother. Carol is very much alive, but she is only thirty years old and spending the summer in Positano. Katy also meets her friend, Remo. It doesn't seem that Carol has any inkling that Katy is the daughter she will give birth to and raise in the coming years, or that there is anything other-worldly transpiring. Rather, Katy is just another tourist on her own in Italy that Carol befriends and begins spending time with.

Serle does not explain how it is possible that the two women meet. Rather, she asks readers to suspend their disbelief, accept the magical premise, and focus on the women's interactions and what Katy learns from them. Thus, One Italian Summer succeeds as a meditation on the complex relationships between mothers and daughters, particularly as young women separate themselves from their mothers to stand on their own in the world, establishing careers and lives that may differ dramatically from what their mothers envisioned for them. Serle credibly and compassionately illustrates Katy's gradual appreciation of the fact that her mother wasn't always her mother. Although Carol talked often about that one summer she spent in Italy, Katy is privileged to witness it first-hand and experience part of it along with her mother, a vibrant, beautiful young woman who resembles the mother she knew, but is different in significant respects. The Carol that Katy encounters does not yet know all the things her mother knew, and does not readily have all of the answers to life's big questions. It is easy to see how she became the confident, opinionated, take-charge woman who raised Katy, but Katy never before considered how she grew to be that person. In fact, as the story proceeds, Katy discovers that not everything she grew up believing about the trajectory of her parents' lives and their relationship was completely accurate. She learns that there were details omitted as the stories of their younger days were related to her which, at first, anger and hurt Katy. She does not initially grasp that Carol was, at the same age that Katy is now, grappling with emotions that closely mirror the existential crisis that impelled Katy to Italy to grieve and sort out her future. But as Katy's understanding of the younger version of Carol grows, she sees how selfish and self-centered she was to assume that her mother's choices were easily made -- or even always her own.

One Italian Summer does not fare as well when Serle reveals the plot twist that permits Katy to encounter Carol in Italy. The execution of that familiar story device is clumsy and riddled with incongruities that it is better not to ponder too long in order to avoid diminishing the tale's emotional resonance.

In One Italian Summer, Serle sweeps readers along with Katy on her journey to breathtaking Positano with vividly lifelike descriptions of the setting. Against that luscious backdrop, she crafts an absorbing coming-of-age story. Even though Katy is thirty years of age, she is experiencing loss and mourning for the first time in her life, and Serle's illustration of her emotional growth is believable. Serle's affection for her characters is evident on every page, and her message will resonate both with readers who know the pain of losing a beloved parent and those who dread the day they will experience that profound loss. Katy is a deeply flawed character, to be sure. At the outset, she is naively self-centered, but by the end of the story, thanks to Serle's deft handling of her subject matter, she has grown enormously into a woman with a greater appreciation for what really matters. Serle says she wrote the book to "probe the edges" of her own biggest fear -- losing her mother. "So this book is a bit of a love letter to my future self -- the one that will have to walk this earth without her."

Note to readers: Call your mother, if you're lucky enough to still be able to do so.

Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Reader's Copy of the book. show less

Serle does not disappoint with her newest novel - a coming of age story - why so many of these happen to characters in their 20s - especially on the cusp of 30 - instead of the traditional teen version is something worth pondering for what it says about our current zeitgeist. However, Serle masters it in this tale of 30 year old Katy Silver whose beloved mother, Carol has just died. Katy had nursed her through her illness, and now faces life without her. More like best friends, the two women had planned a trip before Carol got sick, to the Amalfi coast of Italy, a pivotal place for her that she had always wanted to share with her daughter. Now, Katy decides to go it alone, needing space from her predictable, vanilla husband Eric and her show more uninspiring job. Being there is like a dream - it's just as her mother had described it and this helps Katy in her grief. But also in a dreamlike way, Serle's signature, we have to suspend disbelief when Katy makes a new friend who happens to be her mother back in time at age 30.. Kind of like a Back-to the-Future/Freaky Friday mash up, Katy cannot reveal what she knows to Carol and needs to act as if they are contemporaries. They have plenty of Italian adventures, including some flirtations - Adam is a handsome guest at the Hotel Poseidon where Katy is staying, and Raymo is a guy is hanging out with who is definitely not Katy's father. An interesting premise to get to know a parent as if they were a peer and Serle does a nice job conveying the challenge of grief. Katy wonders "When you're just a reflection, what happens when the image vanishes?" After some soul searching and revelations, both women end up on the path intended for them, with a fuller sense of self. Light but thought-provoking - the Italian setting doesn't hurt either for escapism. show less

Katy has always been very close to her mother, Carol, and when her mother dies Katy is left feeling alone, abandoned and lost. Who will tell her what restaurant to go to? Who will decorate her house? Who will make holidays special? At her husband’s suggestion, Katy decides to take the trip to Italy she and Carol had planned. Once in Positano, however, Katy comes across a woman SO like her mother, she’s completely caught off guard.

I was fine with this story at the outset, though I thought Katy was very immature for a woman who is thirty. She acted so much like a teenager, voicing a desire to be independent and make her own decisions, but still reliant on her mother to cook, clean, furnish the house, give her permission to go show more somewhere, etc.

But the tale took a decidedly odd turn about two-thirds of the way through when it’s revealed that Katy has actually time-traveled back to an era when her mother visited the same village. And I felt the ending was pat and rushed.

It held my attention, and it was a relatively fast read. But I’m not sure I’d recommend it. show less