This author participates in the Readers' Favorite Free Book Program, which is open to all readers and is completely free. The author will provide you with a free copy of their book in exchange for an honest review. You and the author will discuss what sites you will post your review to and what kind of copy of the book you would like to receive (eBook, PDF, Word, paperback, etc.). To begin, click the purple email icon to send this author a private email.
This author participates in the Readers' Favorite Book Review Exchange Program, which is open to all authors and is completely free. Simply put, you agree to provide an honest review an author's book in exchange for the author doing the same for you. What sites your reviews are posted on (B&N, Amazon, etc.) and whether you send digital (eBook, PDF, Word, etc.) or hard copies of your books to each other for review is up to you. To begin, click the purple email icon to send this author a private email, and be sure to describe your book or include a link to your Readers' Favorite review page or Amazon page.
This author participates in the Readers' Favorite Book Donation Program, which was created to help nonprofit and charitable organizations (schools, libraries, convalescent homes, soldier donation programs, etc.) by providing them with free books and to help authors garner more exposure for their work. This author is willing to donate free copies of their book in exchange for reviews (if circumstances allow) and the knowledge that their book is being read and enjoyed. To begin, click the purple email icon to send this author a private email. Be sure to tell the author who you are, what organization you are with, how many books you need, how they will be used, and the number of reviews, if any, you would be able to provide.
Reviewed by Jamie Michele for Readers' Favorite
Gaia B. Amman’s An Italian Adventure follows Leda, who insists on being called Lee, as she grows up in 1980s Arese, a town north of Milan where fields, gated communities, and Catholic ritual sit side by side. Lee is the smallest child in her class, a bookish tomboy who feels safest with Peo and Flavio, the two boys who make up her Trio. When Nico Salisi, a class bully newly arrived from Sicily, shows them a forbidden magazine before First Confession, Lee’s fear of sin becomes tangled with shame she barely has words to express. At home, her older sister Viola turns daily life into combat while her parents’ marriage begins changing in ways no one explains. Lee’s childhood becomes a search for truth inside the rules adults barely understand themselves.
Gaia B. Amman’s An Italian Adventure is wonderful literary fiction, and Amman writes about childhood with the speed and embarrassment of actually being inside it. Her sense of place is one of the book’s greatest pleasures. The Genoa harbor sequence is hilarious, with the family baking on empty asphalt after Lee’s father arrives a day early, convinced that being first means victory. Sardinia is just as good, from the resort cottages surrounded by brush to the cold pool where Lee and Peo invent their composite-missile dive. Viola is also well developed. In the border motel, her confession about Pinocchio nightmares and a family séance makes her frightening behavior feel tied to the fear she also feels. Well written and full of life, readers who enjoy literary coming-of-age fiction will adore this book.
