Book Review: The Shoemaker's Wife

I just finished another wonderful read this week:

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It's called The Shoemaker's Wife, by Adriana Trigiani (I was accidentally on a reading theme of books that had "wife" in the title--once I bought this book my book club had picked The Silent Wife, which I reviewed here, so my reading has been heavily "wife"-centered lately haha)

Here's the Amazon synopsis:

Beloved New York Times bestselling author Adriana Trigiani returns with the most epic and ambitious novel of her career—a breathtaking multigenerational love story that spans two continents, two World Wars, and the quest of two star-crossed lovers to find each other again.The Shoemaker's Wife is replete with the all the page-turning adventure, sumptuous detail, and heart-stopping romance that has made Adriana Trigiani, “one of the reigning queens of women’s fiction” (USA Today). Fans of Trigiani’s sweeping family dramas like Big Stone Gapand Lucia, Lucia will love her latest masterpiece, a book Kathryn Stockett, author of The Help, calls “totally new and completely wonderful: a rich, sweeping epic which tells the story of the women and men who built America dream by dream.”

I loved the majority of this book, especially in the beginning. The start of the book made me feel like I was in Italy with the characters. It felt like a painting, and with each page, chapter etc, a new brush stroke was being painted for me. It was a slower read for me, but it was nice. I actually preferred it that way, with how the book was written, with such fine details. You fall in love with the characters over the course of the chapters and descriptions.

At one point in the book, about 3/4 of the way through, I felt as though things happened too rapidly. In the beginning, the story unfolded piece by piece, and then all of a sudden, within one chapter, a matter of years went by, without anything more than a page break (for instance, at one point a child went from being a baby, to 2 years old, and then all of a sudden he was 10, within the same chapter; or the length of World War II happened within a matter of a few pages).  I think the story lost some of its luster and continuity once this happened. I still enjoyed the book overall, though and would recommend it. Especially if you're interested in the early 1900's and Italy...coming to America, and reading beautiful writing.

The best part is, it's only $1.99 on Amazon for the Kindle!