Love and Gelato
Love and Gelato by Jenna Evans Welch is a young adult teen romance novel that is listed as “clean and wholesome romance” on Amazon. However, this novel is not the squeaky clean and wholesome romance that it boasts to be. While it is better than Lynn Painter’s Better Than the Movies, it does have concerning and cautionary content for religious families.
The premise of the story is that Lina (Carolina), the main character, is spending the summer in Florence, Italy after the death of her mother months earlier. She made a promise to her mother that she would go; however, in addition to dealing with the loss of her mother, she has no idea how to act around Howard. In fact, her mother never told her much about him until the two months prior to her death.
This story is quite tragic and sad for also being a romance novel. The story opens with a prologue - Lina is in her sophomore year of high school when the news about her mother’s diagnosis is revealed. Fast forward a bit, she finishes her sophomore year while living with a close friend, her grandparents can’t take her in due to their age and needs, thus she is in Florence with Howard as they pull into the cemetery/ WWII memorial that he lives in as the superintendent of the facility.
Lina is devastated by all the change and reeling from all the things her mother never told her. For one, Lina has never known who her father is and somehow the assumption that it must be Howard has stuck. Two, she is living in a cemetery after her mother has died. Three, she makes a few friends from the local international school, which is where she meets her love interest, Ren, who becomes her boyfriend by the end of the novel. In the midst of all of this, another character, Sonia, delivers to Lina a journal that her mother had sent ahead of her. Sonia believes the journal is meant for Lina, but by the end of the novel Lina realizes that it was meant for Howard. Using the journal entries, Lina retraces her mother’s steps to uncover what really happened between her mom and Howard, hoping to get insight about her father. However, the plot twist - which was easy to see coming - is that Howard is not her father, another man is. Lina visits her actual father and it is quite clear why her mother kept her away from him all these years. After revealing the journal and what she has learned to Howard, the two come to an understanding that he was deeply in love with Lina’s mother and that he wants to care and provide for Lina.
If that storyline wasn’t enough, Welch adds in a whole extra layer in which Lina is pinning after the “hot boy” Thomas from the international school, but it isn’t long before she realizes she really likes Ren. However, Ren has a Swedish girlfriend who is not happy about Lina’s intrusion into her life. This is where much of some of the more inappropriate action takes place.
Below, I will list the noteworthy items that appear and what may be cautionary. Those items are typically tied closely to Lina’s mother, Hadley, and to Lina herself.
“His voice was hopeful, but I slumped back in my seat, a swarm of questions taking flight in my mind. If she loved it so much, then why didn’t she ever tell me about it? Why didn’t she ever talk about you until she got sick? And for the love of all that’s holy, what made her leave out the teeny-tiny detail that you’re my father?” (9).
Addie is Lina’s best friend back at home in Seattle. At the start of chapter 2, a bit of their history and meeting is told. In this telling there is talk about a girl named Sadie who used to bully and tease the other girls and in one instance it was about those who do and who do not need to wear bras. Addie defended her in the situation, and they had been friends ever since (20).
“If Addie were a superhero, her power would be Ability to Make Your Best Friend Feel Normal. [...] She was the kind of friend you knew you couldn’t possibly deserve” (21).
“Turns out reality is as hard and unforgiving as that fire hydrant Addie and I had run into. And I had to live the whole rest of my life without her. I really did” (30).
An old lady appears at Lina's Florence home looking for Howard. In the midst of telling her life story, she mentions “a bunch of horny old dogs” on a cruise in which she met her now husband Hank. She goes on to tell how they moved in together and then quickly got married because they didn’t like “living in sin” (36).
On page 42 and 43, Lina is going for a run when a car full of Italian boys begin to harass her. She ends up running back to the cemetery to get away from them.
In speaking with Sonia, Lina says, “So they were, together together? It wasn’t like a one-night stand between friends or something?” (50). The thought of a one-night stand causing Lina’s conception was a theory her friend Addie had proposed.
In her mother’s journal, Lina reads a conversation that Hadley had written down when telling her parents her plan to go to Italy and not nursing school. In this interaction as she is nervous of the news she needs to tell her parents there is questioning that jumps to asking “are you pregnant?” and “are you gay?” (94). Of course neither are true, but that is what is presented to young readers.
In several conversations with Addie, they discuss boys.
“Jake Harrison? Hot senior lacrosse player? Tried to ask you out for like two months?” (107).
On page 124-125, Lina meets Thomas for the first time and talks about how good he looks and there is a comparison to him being “like a god”.
When telling Addie about Thomas for the first time there are several mentions of how hot he is and how he must be an underwear model (134-135). On page 136, Addie encourages Lina to get pictures of him with his shirt off.
On page 207 Lina has a thought that Thomas’s “sweat was sexy.”
In Chapter 27, Lina goes with Thomas to a very swanky party where she is wearing a formal gown. In driving to the event, Thomas tries several times to put his hand on her knee. She makes a comment about “trying to keep young 007’s hands off me” (359).
At the party there are mentions of the host’s mother’s “bionic cleavage”, “sexy pictures of herself around the house” and her wearing a dress that was “ten seconds from giving up on keeping her boobs covered” (362).
On page 365, Thomas takes Lina outside and encourages her to lay down on a blanket and close her eyes. It creates tension and knowing that he has been trying to touch her most of the night makes the scene awkward. In the end, when he tells her to open her eyes it is due to the release of hundreds of lanterns in the sky. Of course the beauty of the moment is short lived as Thomas puts himself on top of Lina and starts kissing her. She gets out from under him and the two of them argue about why she even came with him to the party (366-367).
On page 369 there is a mention of a couple making out against a tree.
On page 370-371, Ren and Lina have a bit of an argument about the kiss in Rome.
On page 128 there is a reference that younger readers may not get, but Ren has been absent from the group and reappears with grass in his hair. When asked about the grass, he says he “was rolling down a hill.” Thomas responds by asking if it was “A Swedish hill.” Ren’s girlfriend is Swedish.
Lina dresses up for an outing to a club and before leaving Ren makes a comment about her legs (196). Lina then mentions rules she has about wearing short skirts while riding scooters and the honking from other drivers as her skirt flies up (199).
At the club, Lina makes an observation wondering if Ren likes Mimi’s legs too (202). Mimi is Ren’s girlfriend.
In Italy, the teenagers are able to drink and there are many mentions of alcohol use and drunkenness.
“You can always tell when Elena’s had too much to drink because she starts telling people that back in the day they would have been her servants” (112).
On page 119, one of the boys is drinking beer and mentions that “it tastes kind of like a urinal, you know?” and then a few lines down he mentioned that “it tastes like piss.”
Characters discuss how Marco is better when he is drunk (120).
“Half the party was playing a rowdy alcohol-fueled game of Marco Polo” (126).
When Lina arrives home from her first party, Howard has a gathering of friends in his home and Lina makes the observation that “everyone looked a little tipsy” (132).
On 381 there is a mention of Thomas getting drunk and losing his accent.
There are mentions of ghosts haunting Elena’s house in chapter 9.
The use of the word crap appears a few times in the story (124, 141, 274, 318) and pissed (208)
On page 129, a boy makes a comment about freezing his “balls off.”
In the mom’s journal on page 144 she writes about kissing her mysterious boyfriend, X.
In the journal on page 168 there is a statue mentioned that is called “The Rape of the Sabine Women.” The history of the statue is given, but it should be “The Kidnapping of the Sabine Women” (169).
In the mom’s journal she writes about the difficulty of keeping her relationship a secret. “It’s like we’re living a double life –friends in public, lovers in private” (175).
On page 179, Hadley writes about going to see a psychic.
On page 203, “what the hell” appears.
On page 205, while at the nightclub called Space, Lina states “They were really dancing. Like having-sex-on-the-dance-floor dancing.”
On page 206, Lina makes comments about Mimi dancing in a “sexy” way.
Still at the nightclub, there is an incident in which an older man puts his hands on Lina’s butt and grabs a hold of her pressing their pelvises together. She tries to get away from him, but the nightclub is so loud and so crowded that no one sees or cares what is happening to her. Mimi actually comes to her rescue and makes a comment that it happens to her all the time (210-212).
“My mom had been in love with someone who wasn’t Howard. She’d had this take-over-everything passionate love affair and then she’d ended up pregnant with someone else’s baby. Howard’s. Was that her wrong choice? That she’d gotten pregnant with Howard when really she’d been in love with someone else? Was that what had made her flee Italy?” (225). Page 227 continues the speculation that her mom must have been having a baby with someone she didn’t love.
In a confrontation with her biological father, he states about Hadley that “Later I heard she began sleeping with any man who looked her way. I’m guessing you’re the product of that” (286). Her father is actually a terrible man who doesn’t take responsibility for his actions and while he makes this claim, it is a lie.
In her sadness of all that has happened, Lina kisses Ren at the start of chapter 21, but he pushes her away. This creates awkward tension between them until all is resolved at the end of the book (290).
On page 299, in Hadley’s journal she writes about kissing Howard. Then on page 311 when she meets with Matteo, Lina’s father, the two of them kiss and she realizes that she wants Howard, not Matteo. However, at this point she has to tell Matteo that she is pregnant and feels that she must try to make that relationship work. Unfortunately, Matteo becomes violent and it is clear that she cannot stay with him. Hadley lies that the baby isn’t Matteo’s in order to get out of the situation and never returns. Ultimately, she leaves Howard because she doesn’t want the man she truly loves to give up his wonderful life in Florence for her.
On page 342, all is finally revealed that Hadley was dating a professor at her art school who was also having relationships with other students.
On page 383, the romance between Ren and Lina comes to fruition as they are out alone at night and there is a mention of maybe loving one another and then kissing. On 385 they mention falling in love.
Overall, I can see how this novel was considered “clean and wholesome” comparatively and certainly deserves the label from a secular perspective. However, from a biblical perspective, I know I don’t want my daughter and nieces reading a story where a girl is trying to figure out who her father is because her dying mother never told her - only to speculate about one-night stands and relationships with professors. Additionally, the scene at the club when Lina is attacked by a groping man seems unnecessary as well as the reference to having sex on the dance floor. For those of the same perspective as me and like-minded values, this book is a pass. There are better things to read.
This novel is technically the first in a three-part series. However, it is unlikely I will read the other two, which is why it is listed under teen fiction and not books in a series.
