Summer Reading Review: Brava, Valentine, by Adrana Trigiani

This is part of a series about a large Italian, New York family who owns a shoe company that makes custom wedding shoes. Coincidentally, my aunt was reading one of the earlier books at the beach a day or so prior to my finding this book in the large print section at EWML. At the start of this book, the 80-something year old grandmother, co-owner with protagonist Valentine, remarries and moves to Italy, leaving her granddaughter to run the company and coordinate a launch of a new shoe venture. However, the story also centers around Valentine's love interest in Italy and her deciding whether or not she could have a professional career, which she loves, and a personal life.

The book is light and easy to read. Its content is not too compelling, though. This theme of integrating a career and family life is outdated, I think. Also, I don't think it was well developed. In other words, she came to significant decisions about her life pretty quickly. I would have liked to see more character development. However, my aunt, who is in an older generation, said that she liked all of the references to things that actually do happen in large Italian families.

Karen Dydzuhn