Book Review: Flirting In Italian by Lauren Henderson

Flirting In Italian 

By Lauren Henderson

Release Date: June 12, 2012

Source: Library

Summary: Four girls. One magical, and possibly dangerous Italian summer. Family mysteries, ancient castles, long hot nights of dancing under the stars . . . and, of course, plenty of gorgeous Italian boys!

Review: I love reading contemporary YA novels that take place in foreign countries, so when I saw that this one was in Italy, I got beyond excited. Italian boys and a summer to never forget? Yes please! What I got, though, was an okay story that left me more annoyed with the characters than I would have liked. 

Violet seems like a likable character in the beginning. It starts out with her coming face to face with a painting of a women who is the spitting image of her. Violet has always wondered why she has never looked like her parents, and this painting may hold the key to finding out who she really is. So she finds a summer program held in the town the painting had originated from in hopes of finding out the truth to her origins. While there, though, she is faced with cliched American girls, hot Italian boys, and your typical snooty right, spoiled girl who's mom teaches the summer program. 

The beginning held so much promise with the mystery of this painting and Violet's connection to it, but it just went downhill from there. All of the characters were the cliched characters you would expect to show up in a story and everything they did was exaggerated and unbelievable. Violet loved how honest one of the American girls was, but some things she said I could not see anyone ever saying out loud. Then, how Violet and Luca interacted and developed a relationship just seemed fake and rushed to me. So the characters made the story more annoying that I would have wanted it to be. 

I thought the entire point of the story was for Violet to find out what the painting was about while meeting cute Italian boys along the way, but we learn almost absolutely nothing about it! And the cute Italian boy she falls for acts like a jerk half the time she's with him. Maybe that's because there are more details that are going to be revealed in the next book about the painting, but I felt like Violet's entire purpose for her trip was kind of a waste of time because at one point she even decides to give up finding the truth. So this book had a lot of potential in the beginning with a really interesting plot, it just wasn't as fun to read as I wanted it to be!