An Italian Affair

Rating:
Summary: fantastic - couldn't put it down!
Review: This book is just great! I read this while in hawaii and couldn't put it down. The lead character creates an exciting if not enviable life for herself (yay)! She creates opportunities. It is a fun read i would recommend to anyone - i even gave my mom a copy for Christmas!

Rating:
Summary: Bella, Bella!!
Review: Until I can really afford the pleasure to be a world traveller I shall live vicariously through the many author's lives whose memoirs have touched me so deeply and have even sustained my yearning to visit the extraordinary places they write about. Amongst these great authors is Laura Fraser. Her memoir, in which I have just finished, completely captivated me from the first page. It was not so much the love affair that captured my heart but rather her elaborate depiction of every city and every island that she and her lover visited together. It is not hard to feel as though you are there with them in the most enchanting places. I suggest to anyone that shares such a "joie de vive" to buy this book, sit down with a bottle of wine and emmerse yourself in the warmth and amazing beauty of it's pages! "Ricorda e non dimenticare, non `e mai sbagliato amare."(From "An Italian Affair")

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Summary: Wonderful for a book group!
Review: My book group read this scrumptious book and had a dinner featuring the foods the author mentions--luscious tomatoes with fresh mozzarella and olive oil, pasta with capers and cherry tomatoes, arugula salad. It was one of hte most delicious reads of my life--and one of the best reads! I recommend it heartily, with a nice Italian Barolo.

Rating:
Summary: An Italian Affair
Review: It took me a number of page to realize this book was autobiographical. The second person narrative was misleading, and eventually became quite annoying. The author writes her story of an attempt to heal from an unsuccessful marriage, where her ex-husband had gone philandering. According to Fraser, what better way to fix that, than to do it herself with a similarly married man. The difference for her, though, is that she carries on her own illicit affair with a married Parisian in exotic and foreign locations.

The only beauty of the book is in the descriptions of the beautiful scenery Laura encounters. There is no true beauty in the relationship she develops with Professor M. The timing is always on his terms, with an understanding that the relationship would always be only an affair, as he had no intention or desire to leave his wife. So, Laura has gone from a marriage where her husband dishonors her to an affair where her new love interest does the same. I suppose the progress she has made, is in the beauty of the surroundings, and the excitement of the chase, ever knowing that she will not win the race.

Two thumbs down for this book. Fraser wasted a writing opportunity to enamor her readers with Italy, in exchange for sharing her immature pursuit of a lover she could never really have.

Rating:
Summary: Che belle descrizioni!
Review: Fraser wonderfully decribed the scenery of each city she spoke about. Each chapter speaks about a different city in which her rendezvous with "M" took place, and I looked forward to finding out what destination was next. Through her vivid descriptions of scenery and food, it felt as if I was actually in Italy. I could not put this book down, and I was just upset that it had to end.

Rating:
Summary: Hypocritical and irritating
Review: Okay, let me get this straight: the narrator's heart is broken when her husband commits adultery, so she goes to Italy and mends said broken heart by sleeping with a MARRIED MAN???? How do you spell hypocrite? Sorry, I abandoned this one as soon as her clothes came off. She is not sympathetic in the least, and that second person narration is incredibly irritating. Maybe she refers to herself as "you" in order to get some distance from her guilt.

The travel descriptions are nice, at least in the first few chapters. But go to Italy instead. You'll feel better about yourself in the morning.

Rating:
Summary: YOU are not Laura!
Review: I cannot believe believe this writer graduated from Berkely! If I cared that much about it, I would count the number of times she used the word YOU! It drove me crazy and would have put it down had I not been stuck in Charles De Gualle airport for 24 hours. Ischia sounds nice....but don't bother, there's too much good stuff to read!

Rating:
Summary: Nice travel book, but difficult memoir
Review: Reader beware: this book is written in the second person. I found this HIGHLY ANNOYING. As a result, I cast the book aside for a few weeks before finally picking it up and finishing it. That said, I found her descriptions of her travels to be complete. In the end, I must admit, I found myself wondering what happened next in her life...

Rating:
Summary: Please Warn the Publisher's Wife!
Review: The only character I like in this - I hesitate to use the word book, in this, let's say, piece of writing is the husband who had the good sense to divorce Ms. Fraser, fornicator ordinaire, adulterer sub-ordinaire. Go to Italy and have an affair with a shriveled Frenchman? A Parisian professor of aesthetics? Could you make a more limp choice among all the males available in Italy? (Note that irritating 2nd person usage.) Dear former husband, excellent choice that divorce -- although you must have had quite a draining year of marriage trying to fill the vast emotional pit of Ms Fraser.
The self indulgent Fraser woman's poorly written observations about her "recovery" from divorce while swannning her way across Italy with other women's husbands is an insult to every abandoned, divorced woman trying to raise her children while her husband bops off with an emotionally arrogant Fraser clone.
Ms Fraser's piece of print is not non-fiction. It is a piece of self delusion.

Rating:
Summary: An Italian Affair
Review: One of my favorite travel books. This is what some of us fantasize about, exotic islands, an affair with a Frenchman and lots of good food and wine! Laura Fraser is an excellent writer, I was really moved by this book!
Please read it!