Reading Challenge Update

So here is where I stand so far:
Italy in Books Challenge:
1. The Food of Love by Anthony Capella
2. Summer in Tuscany by Elizabeth Adler
3. Juliet by Anne Fortier
4. Finding Positano by William James
5. Tuscany for Beginners by Imogene Edwards-Jones
6. The Neapolitan Steak by Timothy Holme
7. Tuscan Holiday by Holly Chamberlin
Only 5 more to go!

Southern Literature Challenge
1. Sweet Tea at Sunrise by Sherryl Woods
2. Sunrise by Jacquelyn Cook
3. The Help by Kathryn Stockett
Only 1 more to go!

Gilmore Girls Challenge
1. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
2. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
3. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
4. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Not doing so great with this one.  May have to give it up and try again when it is the only one to focus on.  The hardest part about this challenge is that you have to read the specific books, you can't just read whatever books you want.

Classics
See Gilmore Girls Challenge.  I'm really struggling with my original resolution.  These books take me so much longer to get through.  Currently I'm reading War and Peace and Madame Bovary.  There isn't a number amount that I have to accomplish here, I just want to read as many as I can.

War and Peace Read-a-Long
I am currently in Book 11.  Hard to know the page number since I'm reading it on my kindle, but I am over 63 percent done so I should finish just in time.

Tuscan Holiday by Holly Chamberlin

Florence is merely the setting for this story about love, life, and relationships.  Elizabeth Caldwell books a trip to Florence for herself and her daughter Marina.  She hopes that it will be an opportunity for them to bond.  Marina has just graduated from college and is more interested in hanging out with her fiancee and friends.  As Marina and Elizabeth explore the Italian city they confront a few hard truths about themselves and how they've lived their lives.
Marina annoys me throughout the book.  She is pompous and  overbearing at the beginning of the story.  When she meets and falls in love with Luca, a handsome Italian, she becomes a wet dishrag.  Seeing her fall off her own pedestal was a bit gratifying.  Seeing her appreciate and try to understand her mother was hugely gratifying.

Elizabeth annoys me with her submissive personality.  In order to keep from alienating her daughter, she tends to just accept her abuse.  At least, until she finally explodes in an Italian restaurant.  Which is a great scene, by the way.  Unfortunately, after that she falls back into the pattern of doing whatever Marina wants.  It's interesting to me that she acts this way considering that she had to be a pretty strong woman to successfully raise a daughter after her boyfriend abandoned her. 

However, the constant reflections of both women lead to some pretty satisfying conclusions.  Marina learns that she isn't perfect and Elizabeth learns to accept love and move on.

While most of the story takes place during their two weeks in Florence, the city itself is a mere prop to the inner musings of the two women.  The reader gets to experience the food and scenery of Italy, but it is relegated to the background.

I would give this book 3 out of 5 stars.  It was okay.

The Neapolitan Streak by Timothy Holme

I thoroughly enjoyed this book!  It was like reading an Agatha Christie novel.  Intricate plot twists and engaging characters made this book entertaining and fun to read.
Achille Peroni is an inspector in the Italian police force.  He is a southern Italian who has been stationed in Northern Italy, specifically Verona.  When a prominent member of Verona society disappears, it seems that the politically motivated Red Brigade are to blame.  As Peroni digs deeper, he begins to realize that there is much more to the crime and that it could be because of an ancient feud that leads back to the most famous of star-crossed couples, Romeo and Juliet.

At first I was a bit leery of the tie to Romeo and Juliet, but Holme managed to incorporate the legend without being cheesy.  While the mystery keeps the book moving forward, it is the characters that make the book entertaining.  Peroni is like a suave Hercule Poirot.  He is intelligent, intuitive, and a bit of a ladies man.  I really enjoyed his interactions with his sister's family.  There is a lot of wry and witty humor, which just makes reading the story that much better.

The story is set in Italy in 1980 and it did take me a while to understand and sort through the background information.  Holme just sort of drops you in the middle of Italy with just a brief guidebook.  Once I had the basics down, I found that I liked his technique.  I liked reading about Italy from an insider's point of view, instead of from that of a tourist or expatriate.  Instead of Italy being treated like a travel destination, it was a home.  It was an honest portrayal of both the good and the bad of Italy.

I would give this book 4 out of 5 stars.

Tuscany for Beginners by Imogene Edwards-Jones

Tuscany for Beginners by Imogene Edwards-Jones

After leaving England and her cheating husband behind, Belinda Smith has enjoyed being the Queen Bee of her Tuscan valley. Not only is she the owner of the bed and breakfast Casa Mia, but she has been declared the "La Contessa of the Valley" by her fellow expatriates. Life is going very well. That is until the American Lauren shows up and declares that she is going to open her own bed and breakfast in Belinda's valley. Belinda can hardly stand being upstaged and replaced, so she resorts to petty trickery to derail the competition. Unfortunately for her, Lauren is a former Wall Street hotshot who specialized in hostile takeovers. As Belinda fights to retain control, she slowly realizes that she is in a losing battle.

This was yet another okay book. I really did not like Belinda. She was scheming, selfish, overbearing, lazy, and stupid. Obnoxious would also describe her. I hated the way she treated everyone, including her daughter. How she managed to even keep her business is a mystery to me since she was absolutely the worst hostess ever. I was actually rooting for Lauren to crush her and was a little disappointed that an earthquake demolishing her house was the worst she got. Her character never grew or learned from the experience. She never apologized and never accepted what a truly horrid person she was. The plot was mildly entertaining, but the distasteful main character made me not really care too much.

I would give this book 3 out of 5 stars. The plot was interesting. The main character ruined it for me. There were recipes. They looked pretty good.

Finding Positano by William James

This book was okay. I read it at the beginning of the month and had to re-read the description to remember the main characters. Apparently it wasn't very memorable. I enjoyed the descriptions of Positano. It is definitely a place I want to visit when I get to Italy. However, I just didn't connect with the main character. She was pretty boring to me. The love story was a bit dull. I never felt the spark between Maggie and Stefano. It felt very awkward to me.

I would rate this 2 out of 5 stars.

Sorry the review is so short. I just don't have much to say about this book.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

I would have to say that this book is one of my favorite books this year. Told with alternating viewpoints, The Help explores racism in the South during the pre-Civil Rights era. However, it does so without being preachy or depressing, and I think that is because the characters are written so well. I absolutely loved the characters. Aibileen, the sweet caretaker who finally gets fed up with being treated like a second-class citizen; Minny, the sassy maid with a heart of gold; and Skeeter, the college graduate who is determined to actually use her college degree. When Skeeter ropes Aibileen into helping her write a tell-all book about being a black maid in Mississippi, each of the women must decide if telling the truth is worth the consequences.

I found myself really caring about the main characters (as well as "white-trash" Cecelia Foote) and their struggles to grow in a society that did not allow for growth. The ending did leave me hanging, but I was satisfied with it. The injustices that the black women faced made me angry and grateful. While I know that we do not live in a perfectly colorblind society, I'm glad that it is not as bad as it was then. The rampant racism was appalling and sad.

I would give this book 5 out of 5 stars. A great read!

Juliet by Anne Fortier

Julie Jacobs's life is turned upside down after the death of her Aunt Rose. While her twin Janice inherits the estate, Julie only recieves a letter and a key. The letter informs her that she is really Giulietta Tolomei and that her long-dead mother has left her with a legacy in Siena, Italy. She also discovers that she is a descent of another Giulietta Tolomei, the inspiration for Juliet in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Julie's search for her heritage in Siena leads to adventure and romance. As Julie searches for the truth behind her family, she encounters several old texts that share the fate of 13th century Giulietta and her Romeo. As she reads these texts, she learns about a curse that may or may not be still haunting her family.

I found this story to be very entertaining. The mystery of Julie's inheritance was filled with DaVinci Code type moments. Honestly, this book was more adventurous than I was expecting. I thought it was going to be a heartwarming tale about a woman discovering herself, instead I got a fast-paced adventure. It was a nice surprise. I also enjoyed the interwoven story of Giulietta and Romeo. Personally I've never been a fan of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. I always thought the characters were annoying. I disliked that they chose suicide as a solution to their problem. Fortier's story was tragic, but the main characters were victims of horrible circumstances, not just some silly star-crossed lovers. I liked the character of Giulietta, she was quite a woman. Siena was not a city I had ever read much about, so I enjoyed reading about it as both a medieval and current place. It seems like an interesting place to visit someday.

Overall, I would give this book 4 out of 5 stars. I really enjoyed it.