Review: Italian With a Side of Pasta by Suzanne D. Williams
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 08 12, 2013
Italian With a Side of Pasta by Suzanne D. Williams is a quick easy read that is also a great story. Sergio and Vittoria Colafranceschi have been married for twenty-one years and have a son fifteen, a daughter seventeen, and another son nineteen. They are a happy and loving family with lots of extended family that adds to the happiness and love. About half the story takes place in a couple of days in the present time, but the flashbacks go back for twenty-three years when Sergio and Vittoria met. Normally I do not care that much for flashbacks in stories but the author included a date when there was a flashback and this made the switch from now to then and back to now very easy. The entire novella was a very enjoyable story but I actually think that I liked the flashbacks the best. The flashbacks had a good bit of humor and that always adds to my enjoyment of a story.The characters and scenes were so well developed that I felt as if I were right in the middle of all the things that were going on with the family. I especially liked the dialogue and a great deal of it lead to some good laughs. One comment that Sergio made really gave me a great laugh. He was wondering "Why did his personal life always involve a female who wanted to remove his shirt?" This is a good, clean, Christian story so don't get the wrong idea. To learn why Sergio said that, you will have to read the story. I really liked the way that the author gave Sergio and Vittoria a chance to look back and remember when they met and think about everything that led eventually to their marriage. It was nice to read a love story that involved a couple in their forties since it seems that most romance books are about couples in their twenties or thirties. Another thing that I liked about this story is the way the author portrayed the couple as a loving one and that they were still deeply in love after twenty-one years and three children. I also appreciated that God was included in the lives of the characters.I highly recommend this short story that you can finish in two hours at the most. I only have one negative thing to say about the story...it was too short. I wanted to read a lot more about the family.Thanks to the author, Suzanne D. Williams, for providing me with a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.