Wednesday, May 30, 2007

For the Love of Venice - 2 Stars

Summary of For the Love of Venice by Donna Jo Napoli:
Reluctantly, 17-year-old Percy sets off with his family to spend the summer in Venice. With his civil-engineer father absorbed in his work project, his artist mother flitting off to absorb the ambiance, and his engaging little brother immersing himself in the adventure, Percy finds himself listlessly wandering the beautiful old city. Then he meets Graziella. The attraction is mutual and instant, although the young woman is perplexingly adversarial. Conflicts arise when Percy discovers that she is a member of an underground political group prepared to use extremist measures. Frustrated by the language barrier and by political differences, Percy is on uncertain ground; he is unable to understand Graziella's stereotyping of him as an intruding American who is among those ruining life for native Venetians. He becomes the epitome of the confused, well-meaning, liberal-minded American. A crisis brings the two closer, and they are able to talk and expose the fallacies and truths in one another's thinking.


Eh, this book was decent. I'm glad it was short, because it just seemed absolutely silly. Things seemed very unlikely to occur and just not realistic at all. Don't read it.

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