One Italian Summer
“My mother, you see, is the great love of my life.”
This book Wrecked me. Capital W. I started crying in the first chapter and pretty much never stopped. Rebecca Serle’s One Italian Summer is an emotion-packed exploration of grief, mother/daughter bonds, and past versus present selves—and I was not ready for it.
Some context…
Katy Silver’s mom was the center of her universe. From weekly lunches and shopping trips to daily phone calls and unannounced visits, they could never get enough of each other. Then, the unthinkable happens: Carol dies, leaving Katy in ruin. Her world has gone dark, and she can’t imagine ever seeing the sun again. How can she continue to live when her very being is so intertwined with, so dependent on, her mother’s?
When she finds a pair of plane tickets in her mom’s closet, she remembers the mother/daughter trip to Positano they’d booked months back. There seems to be no better place to feel close to her mother than one of Carol’s favorite places in the world, where she visited as a young woman. Katy is expecting mouthwatering food, bright waters, and cloudless skies. She is not expecting to find her mother in the flesh—and thirty years old. She might not understand it, but she’s not going to give up the chance to meet this wild, free-spirited version of her buttoned-up mother. But the more time she spends with a young Carol, the more she realizes how little she knows about her mom. And in just one magical summer, her past is redefined, and her future redirected.
Some thoughts…
The queen of magical realism does it again, wonderfully weaving fantastical elements into a grounded world, giving an entirely new meaning to the concept of what-if. Serle makes us question the bounds of our lives—what we’re capable of doing, accepting, and becoming. She manages to make readers believe in the impossible, and it’s part of what makes her stories so powerful.
The depiction of Katy’s relationship with her mother hits scarily close to home. Whether she is remembering her mother’s signature scent, the way she answered the phone, or the wide sun hats she donned, every single sentence is spot on. Her reeling thoughts and questions are completely accurate and authentic. Sometimes, they are almost too hard to read.
Surprising, heartbreaking, and touching, One Italian Summer is a story that will leave you hugging your loved ones just a little tighter.
