I like to read a lot of books, but it's hard sometimes to keep my attention captivated. Sometimes I find myself reading one or two pages of a book and then stopping. But, I have read the entire book Love and Gelato, and I have really enjoyed it! The author of the book is Jenna Evans Welch, the daughter of Richard Paul Evans. It was published May 3, 2016, in the genre of fiction. 

The book is about Carolina, better known as her nickname Lina, Emerson. Her mother has sadly died due to cancer, and it was her dying wish for her daughter to go to Italy and to get to know her father who left them 16 years ago. Of course, Lina is apprehensive about the situation but is flown to Tuscany over the summer and meets up with her father, Howard, who lives in a graveyard for the World War II memorial center because he is the caretaker and tour guide there. A friend of Howard's and Lina's mother's, Sonia, gives Lina a journal that her mother wrote in. As she opens it, she finds journal entries about her mother's life when she went to school in Florence. She goes all over town with her newly found friend, Ren, to try and follow in her mother's footsteps. Along the way, she ends up uncovering the truth about her father – and that Howard isn't him. A professor at a school in Florence is actually Lina's biological father. While she uncovers the truth and finds out that her mother messaged her ex-boyfriend, Howard, to be Lina's "father", she ends up falling in love with her friend Ren. The book ends happily, with Ren and her getting together and even though she isn't Howard's daughter, she stays with him and goes to school in Italy.

I think this book was really great. The wording that the author uses is nice and perfectly describes each and every situation, even when sometimes the wording is in Italian. It really captured the Italian feel and made you feel like you were being transported to Italy and were side by side with Ren and Lina. It had a light and happy feel, but also an emotional and heavy feel depending on which chapter you read next. It perfectly described what thoughts and feelings might be going through Lina's mind and was very realistic in that area. The plot was very interesting and may be farfetched in real life, but that's what makes it interesting to read, a page turner, and why it's classified as a fiction story. It truly was a very entertaining book and I found that I couldn't put it down. I kept wondering what would happen next after every chapter. Every chapter seemed to end on a cliff-hanger, which is an excellent tool for getting your readers to keep reading.

The writing that Welch used was very effective, powerful, and sometimes emotional. It really depended on the chapter you read. Some chapters, the wording would be very romantic and would really complement what was happening in the story and sometimes even the setting of the chapter. This was exhibited when Ren and Lina went through the feelings of love. It made you feel like you were right there with them in that romantic setting. The author also uses emotional and powerful wording in other chapters, such as when Lina discovered her mother's journal or when she discovered her father was actually not Howard. It really made you keep up with the theme and feeling of each chapter of the book and gave you so much to really dig into. Strong points in the book would be the diverse characters, and the storyline of Lina in Italy following her mother's steps. However, with the strong points, there are also weak points. The love triangle between Lina, Thomas, who is another character in the book Lina falls for, and Ren was just plain unnecessary. From the beginning, we knew that Ren and Lina were compatible and to throw a new boy into the equation really made me feel uneasy about the relationship between them. I just don't think Thomas was necessary to the story, and maybe the author was trying to throw in too much drama into the book at this point.

Overall, my impression of the book is that it's very interesting to read, and it has a lot of genres mixed up into one – mystery, romance, and adventure. I think that anybody that is looking for an interesting book to read should definitely check into this one. It has a lot of drama, a lot of adventure, and constantly keeps you asking yourself "What will happen in the next chapter" or "What are the characters going to do now?" It's such an interesting book that keeps you reading until the end and leaves you with a happy ending, and the ending everybody wanted to happen. Love and Gelato is one of my favorite books and I know it always will be.