I’m torn on how to rate One Italian Summer by Rebecca Serle. On one hand, I truly enjoyed reading about Italy and the Hotel Poseidon Positano. The descriptions of Positano truly brought it to life, so much so, that I looked up the hotel and the places that were mentioned in the book. Unfortunately, many of the characters seemed contrived and stereotypical. I usually enjoy a book with magical realism however the unsympathetic nature of the main character, Katy, made it difficult for me to suspend reality. The relationship she had with her mother seemed very unrealistic even for this type of book.
Overall, I would recommend One Italian Summer to readers who enjoy magical realism and enjoy exploring a travel destination through books. It makes for a quick summer read however it did not pack the emotional punch that I expected.
Thank you to NetGalley, Atria Books and Simon & Schuster for the opportunity to read and review this book.

This book was beautifully written and totally transports you to Positano, Italy. It touched me on many levels as a woman, daughter, and mother. It made me miss my mom but also made me remember the little things that were special about her. I will re-read this book in the future.

It was a solid read. It aborded meaningful themes of grief, loss, mother-daughter relationships and just adult life in general. As a 16 year old, I didn’t relate to this very much or understand Katy’s point of view of her life. It didn’t bother me because I don’t read books to relate to them but I certainly think I would’ve enjoyed this more if I was older, more mature. I loved that it took place in Italy, my origins. I’ve been to the Amalfi coast and I can agree, it is indeed splendid. As I read this on the bus, from February to March in Canada, I was transported to a world of warmth and beautiful scenery. Now what I didn’t like too much was Katy… her obsession with her mother (which was almost as if she was in love with her) and her relationship and doubt with Eric (like the fact she cheats on him??) The ending felt a bit abrupt especially with the whole Adam plot twist. I wasn’t expecting her to stay with Eric so that disappointed me. Overall it was a meaningful read

“𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘢𝘮𝘦 𝘴𝘦𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘤𝘪𝘳𝘤𝘶𝘮𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘴, 𝘣𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘦𝘧𝘴, 𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘨𝘰𝘵 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘰 𝘢 𝘮𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘸𝘰𝘯’𝘵 𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘰 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘴 𝘯𝘦𝘹𝘵. 𝘐𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘢 𝘥𝘪𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘰𝘶𝘵𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘥𝘪𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘭𝘺. 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘬𝘦𝘦𝘱 𝘦𝘷𝘰𝘭𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨.”

𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐕𝐈𝐄𝐖: katy’s mom passes away and her marriage is struggling. she decides to take the trip to italy her and her mother had planned before she died.

𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐒: a book that takes place in italy? sign me up! one thing i loved about this book was the descriptions of all the food and the places they visited! it also touches upon grief & loss in a really interesting way. i appreciated the story a lot and i think there was tons to learn from it. katy’s relationship with her mom though was a little too all consuming. i feel like at her age she should know more than she does about being an adult. the time traveling aspect was somewhat hard to follow too and i wish it was handled a little differently. i also think that the whole adam thing was a little bizarre. however, rebecca serles writing is so beautiful and feeling like i was back in italy saved the book for me!

thank you so much to rebecca serle, atria books, and netgalley for an arc of this book in exchange for an honest review!

“‘Katy,’ he tells me. ‘History is an asset, not a detriment. It’s nice to be with someone who knows you, who knows your history. It will get even more important the longer you live. Learning how to find your way back can be harder than starting over. But, damn, if you can, it’s worth it.’”

Italy is one of my favorite places on earth, so I was never not going to read this book. My husbands family is from a small town just north of Naples and reading this was like visiting them again. I could taste the delicious food. I could hear that beautiful language. I could sense the feelings of history and tradition and things just being really really 𝙤𝙡𝙙. “The hotel was old—everything, my mother used to say, is old in Italy. But it was charming and beautiful and warm. It had so much character and life.”

But Katie? Oomph. I was raised to be strong and independent. Her dependence on her mother was annoying and unhealthy to say the very least. Your husband wants to start a family and you ask your MOTHER if you are ready?! Instead of talking to your HUSBAND?! 🤦🏼‍♀️ Oye. She was, by far, one of the more unlikable and annoying characters for me in recent memory. It definitely detracted from the story a bit. But, Italy.

Thank you to Netgalley, Atria Books, Simon & Schuster, and the author for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

“Italy is about taking it slow.” Indeed.

in five years blew me away and so i had high high expectations for this one. i was worried it would be super emotional and hard to read - i always get emotional with mother and daughter relationships in books - but it was emotional in a good way. the setting was amazing and i liked the characters. definitely recommend.

Be right back….I’ll just be over here packing for
a dream trip to Italy after reading this book…..

I dare you to read this and not be swept away to Positano.

The setting was breathtaking. You seriously can feel the warm sun on your face, smell the smells and taste the delicious food. My mouth was watering at the food descriptions.

On top of all of that though is a book filled with emotions, a look at what loss and grieving is like, and really got me thinking about the lives people live before they enter your life.

Rebecca Serle is one of those authors that challenges me as a reader and defies what I think I don’t care for in books. All three of her books I would think I “wouldn’t like” according to the synopsis and I can confirm that all three of them were major hits for me.

There is something about her writing that just sucks me right in, to the point I don’t even question that the plot isn’t realistic.

I could not put this book down.

I think I knew within the first few chapters that I wasn’t going to like Katy, and when I don’t like the narrator it’s hard for me to enjoy a story. Her relationship with her mother and the way she described it made me incredibly uncomfortable, as well as the way Katy treated her husband. The writing in this story is beautiful, and I know that just because the story wasn’t for me doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be for someone else! I love the way the imagery was described and it truly felt like I was sucked into a different place while reading this story. Again, the content just wasn’t for me but I think this was an interesting take on exploring relationships and learning that your parents had a life before you and outside of you


Thank you Netgalley for providing me with an early copy of this for my honest review!

I struggled with this story. It was really well written (as was the other book by Searle that I've read) but where I am in my life right now I disliked Katy from the get-go. I may have to try this one again at a different time.

This book, while okay, lacks the oomph that I expected after reading another one of Sterles books. I was bored honestly, and some will love this but not for me.

This was a quick read. I really enjoyed the setting and the beginning of the book but the 2nd half was not for me. The descriptions of the food and the scenery were immaculate but I didn’t really like the characters and I didn’t feel their connections. Their decisions did not resonate with me unfortunately.
Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for providing me with the ebook in exchange for an honest review.

The past and present collide in the most beautiful, yet heart wrenching way! Not to mention, it all takes place in the most gorgeous setting! A journey through grief reveals secrets unknown and takes the main character on an adventure she’ll never forget.

One Italian Summer by Rebecca Serle. A beautiful telling story of a mother daughter relationship and how grief affects our relationships. This book not only has the cutest cover ever it’s full of emotion and the things we go through when losing someone we love.

I absolutely love when a book takes me to Italy on a vacation and Rebecca’s writing descriptions when it came to the hotels, food and all the wine was on point! I loved the book In five Years and I enjoyed this one as well.

Thank you Netgalley and Atria Books for an ARC in exchange for my honest review

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 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.

This book crashed into my past and all my regrets, hopes, wishes, and sorrows. I was both Carol and Katy, the mom who died and the daughter who finds her again in Italy. My own life paralleled Carol’s - I married at age 21, started teaching at 22, had a baby at 26, never left the continent until age 42. I was steeped in regret at times, wondering what happened to the 18 year old who wanted to live in New York City, to the 20 year old who wanted to be a photo journalist and travel the world, never having children or a home or a partner. Did I live those lives in an alternate universe? Will I meet that woman someday? Do I embrace my life choices now? I am also Katy, a member of the “dead mom club” and my mom’s absence never recedes for long. I will never laugh uproariously with her again, or sink into her arms, or hear her say “I love you mostest.” To be loved like that is the most special gift. My mother was my everything.This book hit my heart in every beautiful spot and I am forever grateful to Rebecca Serle for this gift.

I don't know about anyone else but I found this book so boring? I didn't love the characters and the plot which I thought would hold me didn't at all.

Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for providing me with an arc for an honest review.

Wow, One Italian Summer by Rebecca Serle is a captivating, well written book that grabs you and won’t let go until the last words! The first line of the book is “I’ve never smoked, but it’s the last day of my mother’s shiva, so here we are.” That’s what hooked me. I had to know what happened next, and as is Serle’s style, a sizable dose of magical realism pulled the story along to its satisfying end. I loved it so much in ebook format (from NetGalley) that I bought the hardcover at Barnes & Noble two days after publication. The Barnes & Noble edition has additional, delightful content that will be ideal for a book club discussion or for your future travel inspiration. I know that I’ll reread this book again because it’s transportive and well written.

Katy and her mother, Carol, were supposed to go to Positano together for Carol's 60th birthday, but Carol passes before they can make the trip. Lost without her best friend and unsure what her life means without her mother, Katy decides to go to Positano alone. While she's enjoying the food and the views, she meets the younger version of Carol at 30 years old.

I really felt for Katy and her grief. I understood the choices she made even if I couldn't agree with them. I thought the setting and descriptions of Italy were the perfect backdrop for a story with a touch of magical realism. Any book that can bring me to tears will be a winner for me.

This book was fine. It is a short read but the story feels like it drags. I really disliked the main character. The story was overshadowed by a problematic mother/daughter relationship and processing grief. I got a tad tired of the repetitive theme. There was a major plot hole I couldn't get past either. After the author's other books, I was a little disappointed by this one.

This book was really a love letter to Italy, wrapped up in a story of how a girl figures out herself and finds her mother. Yes, you need to suspend some disbelief and believe in some magic. Ok a lot of magic. It was heartbreaking how wrapped up in her mother Katy was; when she talked about merely existing and not wanting to even do that without her mother around: that was heavy. Her codependency was heavy. Her belief that she wasn't anyone without her mother, was heavy. That wasn't truly explored (Katy needs therapy) and I kind of wish it was. Anyway, get ready for a few tears and to be very hungry.