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Searching... McMinnville Public Library | Lindner, A. | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
While backpacking through Florence, Italy, during the summer before she heads off to college, Lucy Sommersworth finds herself falling in love with the culture, the architecture, the food...and Jesse Palladino, a handsome street musician. After a whirlwind romance, Lucy returns home, determined to move on from her "vacation flirtation." But just because summer is over doesn't mean Lucy and Jesse have to be, does it?
In this stunning novel, April Lindner perfectly captures the highs and lows of a summer love that might just be meant to last beyond the season.
Author Notes
April Lindner is the author of Catherine and Jane and a professor of English at Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia. Her poetry collection, Skin , received the Walt McDonald First-Book Prize in Poetry, and her poems have been featured in many anthologies and textbooks. April lives with her husband and two sons in Pennsylvania.
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 9 Up-In exchange for enrolling as a business major for her first year in college, Lucy Sommersworth is treated to a summer backpacking trip across Europe. There, Lucy meets Jesse Palladino, an enticing musician who is living his dream as a traveler, not tied down to anything or anyone. Jesse and Lucy quickly become entangled in a vacation romance, but before long, Lucy has to go back home to start college, while Jesse stays in Italy. Will Lucy stay in contact with Jesse? Will she ever see him again? Or will she be able to move on and find a dream boyfriend at college? Lucy faces dilemmas and challenges that most young people can relate to: fighting with friends, standing up to parents, breaking up, and balancing obligations and desires. While still a teenager dealing with typical problems, Lucy is also growing up fast and learning how to be an adult. This means struggling with very hard decisions that could make or tear apart friendships, relationships, and family. A contemporary romance with surprising depth in its coming-of-age elements, this modern update of E. M. Forster's A Room with a View will appeal to fans of Sarah Dessen, Stephanie Perkins, and Lindner's reimagined classics. It would also work well in high school literature classes studying Forster's novel.-Eden Rassette, Kenton County Public Library, KY (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Just before heading to college, Lucy and Charlene are on the European summer tour of a lifetime, and while in Italy, Lucy meets a free-spirited American named Jesse. Despite their short-lived possibilities for romance, Lucy falls hard and returns home to Philadelphia pining for him. Just when Lucy begins dating someone else, Jesse shows up at her school, and complicated decisions arise for her. Again turning to classic literature for inspiration as she did in Jane and Catherine (this time, E.M. Forster's A Room with a View), Lindner writes in a straightforward third-person storytelling style that allows distance for readers to observe Lucy coming into her own. Like her forebear, Forster's Lucy Honeychurch, this Lucy must sort through the muddle of her emotions-torn between a cerebral, respectable boy and a more passionate one-and learn to stand on her own convictions. The parallels to A Room With a View contribute to an overarching theme seen in both stories: rising above the social strictures placed on a spirited girl bound by propriety. Ages 15-up. Agent: Amy Williams, McCormick & Williams Literary Agency. (Jan.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
Lucy and Jesse have a brief whirlwind romance in Italy; he stays and she returns to the U.S. for college, missing Jesse and unexcited to be majoring in business instead of theater. By auditioning for a play and dating again, Lucy learns to follow her heart. A fresh re-imagining of Forster's A Room with a View for fans of Sarah Dessen and Stephanie Perkins. (c) Copyright 2015. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
A European summer flirtation blossoms into something more in this romance set in Italy and Pennsylvania. While on a high school graduation trip to Florence, aspiring actress Lucy meets Jesse, a wandering minstrel of a boy originally from New Jersey who busks for room and board. During the last days of her vacation, they share a hotel room, and tensions arise when Lucy chooses to spend time with Jesse over her traveling companion, Charlene. When it's time for Lucy to go home, she and Jesse reluctantly part, and Lucy is convinced she will never see Jesse again. Fast-forward to her freshman year at a Philadelphia college. Lucy lands a lead role in Rent, even though her controlling father has forbidden her to keep acting. She has a gorgeous new boyfriend named Shane but can't stop thinking about Jesse. When Jesse shows up unexpectedly on campus, Lucy must decide between rebelling against her father and following her dreams with Jesse or sticking with her business major and playing it safe with Shane. This novel is ideal fodder for romance traditionalists, checking off every genre trope with the regularity of a metronome in solid if unremarkable prose. And Lindner does a good job of describing how uncomfortable travel can become when friends no longer get along. But readers looking for a more juicily written romance travelogue that teases and surprises at every turn may prefer Gayle Forman's Just One Day (2013) and Just One Year (2013). A satisfying if predictable crowd pleaser. (Fiction. 13-17) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Lucy loves acting onstage. She truly becomes her characters, sharing the magic with the audience and basking in their applause. But Lucy's father informs her that her theatrical aspirations will end with high school; he won't waste an expensive college on playacting. So they strike a deal: Lucy and a friend will go on an all-expenses-paid trip to Europe, and when Lucy returns, she'll study business in college. The European trip is a wonderful dream. Lucy meets someone special, an American musician named Jesse. Jesse even gets Lucy to come onstage and sing with him, reminding her of the future she has promised away. Once Lucy returns to the U.S. and starts college, the impossibility of the choice she has made, combined with her determination to move on from her romance with Jesse, makes life unbearable. This intelligent love story will resonate with readers who are themselves balancing the thin line between making lives of their own and seeking parents' approval. A good read-alike recommendation for fans of Jennifer E. Smith or Stephanie Perkins.--Colson, Diane Copyright 2014 Booklist