Review: Flirting in Italian by Lauren Henderson

                                                                        

Title: Flirting in Italian
Author: Lauren Henderson
Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers
Publishing Date: June 12th 2012
Pages: 352
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Series: Flirting in Italian #1
Source: Digital ARC


Goodreads: 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:

The title and the cover drew me to this book. I think both are really cute and sound like a fun book. I have read some of the
Scarlet Wakefield series by this author and hoped there would be some mystery in this story too. And there was.

The story is about a girl, Violet, who loves art. She finds a painting in a museum of a woman that looks like she could be her twin. Curious, Violet decides to take off to Italy and search for the origin of the painting. She feels that there must be a connection. Once she is there she finds an Italian boy, 3 unlikely friends, a jealous enemy, and more mystery and danger than she expected.

The story was really enjoyable. Violet was a really easy character to like and relate too. She acted and though for the most part like any other teenage girl. Violets roommates were also very fun, all uniquely different enough to spark some fire into the relationships. They are quite the foursome and one would never see all of them hanging out together, but they work.

There is a bit of a love story, actually the romance is a big part of the story. The first half, maybe a little more, was devoted to Violet and her friends going out and finding boys to fall for. Violet seems to fall for a pseudo bad boy, Luca. One moment he is sweet and sexy and then he says something ridiculous that made me laugh and slap him too. Violet seemed to have much of the same reaction. They had some real chemistry with a bit of a language and cultural snag. Their relationship was definitely a plus to this story.

The other part of the book was devoted to the mystery of the painting. Luca lives in the castle where the painting can be traced back to. Luca’s mother and staff seemed to think that Violet looks a lot like Luca’s aunt at a very young age. Interesting. This part felt a little strange to me. I really hoped Luca would not turn out to be Violet’s cousin. This mystery led to some danger. The book really got interesting at this point and became a real page turner for me. Unfortunately only part of the mystery is solved at the end. I am really happy to see a companion book coming out.

Overall, it was a fun story but I felt like it was almost two different stories. It seems at the beginning, this is going to be another contemporary romance and then a mystery kind of takes over. I think that they mystery bit could have been built a little more at the beginning. The character building was done well and that saved the story for me. I will read the companion book as soon as it comes out because I am dying to see what happens.

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