2 out of 4 stars
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Two Seas, by Lynn Rodolico, is a fictional story about a couple who lives in Italy. Kate is American by birth, but when she decided to spend a year in Italy as a photographer, she fell in love, married an Italian, Niccolo, and never returned to the States. Now, when their two daughters are grown and out of the house, they have decided to buy a home near the sea in Sicily.
This book had potential. It sounded good and a story set with the back drop of Italy by the sea is something I thought I would enjoy. Unfortunately, I had several issues with this book that took away from my enjoyment of it quite a bit. First of all, there were just so many errors. There were oddly spaced words and sentences, misplaced words, and simple typos.There was incorrect grammar and the occasional incorrect tense used. It was very distracting and greatly took away from the finished feel a book should have.
And then there was the writing itself. The language used was so flowery and way too descriptive. Everything was described in such detail. And the metaphors... the metaphors and similes were never ending. It was just too much. There were also times when I wondered if the author was using big words just to sound good. There was also an overuse of Italian, which seems odd considering the book was set in Italy, but the way it was used sometimes had the same feel as the big words, like it was just to look good. Another problem was that the Italian words were sometimes italicized and sometimes were not, without any rhyme or reason to it.
Then I got to the part of the story, where it said this: "After all, it’s not about plot; it’s about language, of being in the company of carefully chosen words." It was obvious that this is the author's belief, which brings me to my biggest problem with this story -- there was a huge lack of plot. But it was full of language. The story just kind of went along describing the details of this couple's life for a series of months. There wasn't the obvious beginning, middle, and end, with some sort of main conflict to be resolved. In fact, when it ended I was quite surprised. I turned the page to keep reading and there was nothing left. It just ended. I feel like this sort of story could be successful, but the way this was written just didn't hold my interest.
There were other things too -- time going by without the reader being aware of it, characters doing things, or appearing in ways, that didn't make sense -- but the lack of a main story line is really what made this book unappealing to me. This combined with the all of the errors and the flowery language leads me to give this 2 out of 4 stars. I didn't enjoy it much, but there may be people out there who are all about the language and wouldn't mind the other issues.
***
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