📖 Katy's mom dies & Katy can't cope with the loss. Carol wasn’t only her mom but also Katy's best friend & with her gone life has lost its meaning.

She decides to plan a visit to an Italian town her mother had once gone to as a summer escape from her mourning.

Imagine Katy’s surprise when she encounters Carol—alive & well & not the mother she remembers her as but as the young women she was BEFORE she met Katy’s dad & got pregnant. Katy now has the whole summer to get reacquainted with her mom in ways she never knew possible…

⭐️⭐️⭐️

📝 So… I cried. Bawled really. My mother had me at a very young age so her & I, in a way, kind of “grew up” together. She is my best friend in the whole world so I can relate to Katy when she says “My mother, you see, is the great love of my life. She is the great love of my life, and I have lost her.” I felt the pain of Katy’s loss to the my very core!

I loved that the loving relationship behind this novel wasn’t a romantic one but one of a mother & daughter which is infinitely more intimate in my humble opinion. I felt like the author did a phenomenal job with portraying grief & I also loved the description of the sun-soaked, beautiful Italian coast & the cuisine. (It brought me back to me & my hubby’s honeymoon that we took in Italy)

My only complaint is that I felt that the magical realism/time travel aspect of the novel was not explained as well as it could be. And I hated how Katy treated her husband. I also think there was some serious co-dependency issues she needed to figure out. But All in all though, I really enjoyed this book & would recommend to anyone who is obsessed with their mama like I am! 🥰

katy and her mother had a wonderful relationship as mother and daughter. carol silvers has died before they take their long awaited trip to see italy—a place where carile had spent a magical summer. katy leaves everything behind to make that trip alone. what she finds will change her forever.

I want to be in Italy.
Eating all the pasta.
Exploring all the breathtaking views.
Immersing myself in a simpler life.
I want to explore a new city.
Get lost in the streets.
Chat with locals.
Soak up the sun, the sand and the crystal blue sea.

Rebecca Serle has a way in her writing of capturing reflection during big life changing moments. Be those moments grief, love, loss, or searching for a sense of purpose her writing allows you, as the reader, to be reflecting right along with the characters. One Italian Summer felt the same.

I felt loss and grief with Katy. I felt the sense of exploration and being brought back to life and awe in the discovery of a new place. I felt the flurry of excitement for something new. Along with the realization things aren’t quite what you always thought they were.

One Italian Summer felt like a love letter to yourself. About searching for who you are meant to be, only to realize you knew all along.

Thank you to Atria and Netgalley for this eARC copy to read and review.

I truly and fully enjoyed this book - I wasn't the biggest fan of In Five Years but I LOVED this one. I found the time loop to be written wonderfully and thoughtfully. Katy thought she knew her mother but how can you really know someone who lived a whole life before you were born? She got to experience how her mother was younger first hand. She was lost and found her way.

I absolutely NEED to visit Positano, this book absolutely transports you to Italy and it sounds beautiful. I won't forget this one.

I love Rebecca Serle’s writing and was so excited to go to Italy via this book. I was there for it for about the first half, but it fell so flat. The best part of this was the description of Italy and the food.

Katy and her mom planned a trip to Positano together, where Carol visited before she met her husband and had Katy. Before they can go on this trip, Carol succumbs to her cancer, and Katy decides to go on this trip alone.

I didn’t love Katy, her personality and whole identity were tied to her mother. With Carol gone, Katy didn’t know who she was at the beginning of the novel, and I’m not 100% sure she found herself. I think Serle wrote Positano well - I could picture everything she was describing, almost to the point of being able to smell the salty air and taste the food.

The grief was real in this, and I felt so moved by it. Serle did a fantastic job of describing the process of grieving that moved me to tears in some places.

I am such a fan of Rebecca Serle. She hooked me with The Dinner List, fell in love with In Five Years, and One Italian Summer did not disappoint.

Katy’s mother has died and with her death Katy lost her identity. In the time of being with her mother for her final time on earth, Katy became unhappy with her life and marriage. So when the time came to take the trip to Italy that was booked for her mother’s birthday, she took the opportunity to go and figure out what she wanted out of the remainder of her life.

The spirit of Katy’s mother was everywhere on the Amalfi Coast, and Katy began to see her mother in all the places they were going to go. It was almost like a timewarp as Katy learned about her mother’s past.

This was such a lovely story and beautifully written.

4 stars

Thank you to @netgalley and @atriabooks for a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Noone writes a sweeping story about love without it actually being a romance like Rebecca Serle does. Instead, she writes about grief, connections self-love, and the love stories that we surround ourselves with that aren't about romance at all. And she does it quite well.

One Italian Summer will have you planning a trip to the Amalfi Coast and calling your mother all in one sitting.

Rebecca Serle takes readers to the beautiful Italian coast in this story about loss and learning to love again.

One Italian Summer was a book I needed to read a few chapters at a time because, as someone who has also lost her mother, it was difficult reading at times. I echoed Katy’s grief and I was also envious that she was able to meet her mother again while on her trip to Italy. There were a few twists that surprised me, and I overall loved seeing Katy get to know a different side to her mother and learn a little more about her. I loved seeing Katy rediscover herself a bit here as well. I think Rebecca nailed the feelings one goes through after losing a parent. Especially a woman losing her mother. We’re left feeling lost and wondering how do we live without the person who gave us life and taught us everything. Except how to live without them. Between this and In Five Years, Rebecca has solidified herself as a must read author for me

As a big fan of the “alternate versions of a life” trope, stories with a time-travel element, and other Rebecca Serle books, I wholly expected One Italian Summer to be right up my alley. I was quite surprised by the fact that this book really wasn’t my cup of tea. I found the importance that Kate puts on her relationship with her mother to go beyond what’s healthy. In regard to her feelings about Eric/her relationship with him, it felt like she flipped from hot to cold as it served her whims. Overall, Kate just wasn’t a character that I liked or could relate to.

Thanks go to NetGalley and Atria Books for the opportunity to read an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I really wanted to love this one. In Five Years was a two-sitting read for me, so I was eager to read Serle's newest. Unfortunately the mother-daughter relationship felt unhealthy to me, not something that made me miss my mom. I was left feeling disconnected from something I thought would make me feel all the feelings. Plus, I really didn't like how the main character, Katy, treated her husband. My favorite parts were the Italy descriptions, which made me wish I could hop on a plane and go there RIGHT NOW. If you have a super close relationship with your mom, this might be for you.

𝐑𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠: 3.5/5⭐️⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣
⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣
𝗪𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐈 𝐞𝐧𝐣𝐨𝐲𝐞𝐝: One Italian Summer by Rebecca Serle will make you dream of Positano and the Amalfi Coast. The writing was filled with descriptions of beautiful scenery, and will have you Googling flights and Airbnbs, wishing you were sipping on an Aperol Spritz.

Rebecca Serle always pulls off some magical realism element in her books, and I thought this one was executed really well. It was fun to see Katy and Carol interacting at the same age and experiencing their relationship as a friendship, since their mother/daughter relationship was described as if they were best friends.
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𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐩𝐚𝐮𝐬𝐞: While I loved the setting, this book just never really reached my heart. This had all the makings of a story that would leave me wanting to hug my mom, but missed the mark for me. Katy and Carol’s relationship was portrayed as being very codependent and I think that is where my disconnect lied. It never felt like a relationship to aspire to—it just felt overbearing and pushed me away emotionally.

The way Katy treats her husband was also really hard to stomach. I found the romantic subplot with Adam to be unnecessary, because it didn’t seem fully fleshed out, and often felt rushed.

This book is about a young woman named Katy who, after the loss of her mother, decides to go on the Italian vacation they were planning to take together on her own so she can grieve her mother's loss and also figure out if she wants to stay in her marriage. While she’s in Italy, she runs into someone very unexpected and a lot of things about her mother’s life become clearer as a result.

It was a relaxing, fun book and was surprisingly enjoyable to spend time with, given it deals with the heavy topic of grief.

What a beautiful book about love and loss, gorgeous backdrop of Italy, delicious descriptions of Italian food, and just enough twists to elevate the story. This would make a good book club choice.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4646545102?book_show_action=false

One Italian Summer is a book full of love, wanderlust, delicious food, endless wine, and a little bit of magic. It charmed me from the very beginning and I knew after reading the first chapter that it was going to break my heart and *hopefully* put it back together again. It did just that and so much more!

The power of a mother/daughter relationship is at the heart of this story, but it also blossomed into an electric and emotional story of coming into your own and learning to move forward after loss. Even though I really connected with Katy on some levels because of the all-consuming bond I have with my own mother, she did annoy me at times and I would have liked to have seen even more reflection from her in terms of her growth.

On the other hand, it has been a long while since I have read a book with magical realism and One Italian Summer reminded me of how much I love it. It worked perfectly for Katy’s story! One Italian Summer was my first book by Rebecca Serle, but it will not be my last!

Side note: The audiobook is narrated by Lauren Graham (Lorelai from Gilmore Girls) and, although I didn’t love her voice for the male characters, listening to her narrate this story was so familiar and comforting so that made up for some of the flaws!

Read if you like:
-Mother/daughter relationships
-Magical realism
-Italy
-Delicious food & wine

Thank you so much Atria Books and Netgalley for the gifted copy! All opinions are my own.

While reading One Italian Summer, I had so many questions and didn't quite get it. By the last chapter, I fully understood exactly what was going on, and it hit me over the hard!! This beautiful magical story is a love letter to Positano, Italy and the importance of family. The messages in this quick read of a novel are huge. I did get it, ALL!! happily ! No spoilers here, just know that reading this book can truly open one's eyes to gratitude, love and awareness. Thank you to Simon & Shuster, Inc. - Atria Books and to Netgalley for the epub.

A wonderful story about a grieving daughter and the magical way she finds to reconnect with her mother! A fantastic read!

I liked but didn’t love this book! Time travel stories are really difficult to execute, and I found myself with so many questions while reading. However I loved Serle’s explanation of the grieving process and the gorgeous descriptions of the Amalfi Coast.

Serle, outdid herself again, I loved this title so much. Often we find our parents infallible but being able to go back in time to see when our parents didn't have all the answers is remarkable. Reading this book was like a mini Italian vacation and left me craving good Italian food.