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jaclynday:

What I’ve Read: An Italian Affair by Laura Fraser

How do you heal yourself after losing love? In the vein of Eat, Pray, Love, Fraser tells how she put a heart-breaking divorce behind her after a chance meeting with a Parisian professor in Italy who helped restore her self-confidence and her lust for life (and other things).

What really struck me about this book was the travelog feel throughout. Fraser is a skilled travel writer, and those skills are put to good use here as she offers a real taste of each location she visits to the reader. As she and “M” (the professor) part ways, then meet later in a different location, she aptly describes both the scenery and the way their relationship changes (or the way it just changes her).

It’s such a short, quick read. I curled up on the couch with a cup of decaf coffee and a few cookies and had it done in two hours or so. It transported me in a really exciting way, but I appreciated most of all Fraser’s honesty about her vulnerabilities. It doesn’t have what you might think of as a traditional storybook ending, but it does end on what I felt was a satisfying note—made all the more so by the knowledge that the book is a memoir and not fiction.

It was a perfect end of summer book for me and enticed me to perhaps drag out some pasta recipes again (I’ve had a pasta aversion for a little while here due to weird pregnancy food things going on). I hope you enjoy the book as much as I did!

Have you read this book? What did you think?