An Italian Affair

Rating:
Summary: If you love Italy, you must read this book!
Review: Great reading! This is a great book, in that it not only tells a story, but reads exactly like a travel guide! Laura's travel escapades are fantastic! What a great way to mend a broken heart! In my opinion, her husband was terrible! She was lucky that he left her! This book, was a "rite of passage" for Laura, while she was getting divorced. The beautiful, rich descriptions of this great country were fabulous! If you love Italy, ever wanted to go to Italy, or are thinking of going, you must read this book!

Rating:
Summary: A Quick Vacation
Review: I'm getting ready to set out on a three week trip to Ecuador on my own. I picked this book up on Monday and planned to read it on my trip. Poolside on Tuesday, I finished it and felt like I had just spent the past two days in Europe! This book brings the author's feelings and experiences to life- it is detail rich and helps you escape without really going anywhere. In addition, it reminds women that they can get out and make it on their own- affair or not!

Rating:
Summary: Thank you Laura
Review: If I find the time, I will write to Laura Fraser personally and thank her for this book. Did she realize she was also writing a self-help book for other women who have experienced (and are still experiencing) similar circumstances? By reading and enjoying her book, I have been able to put a four year love affair of my own into perspective. The added bonus is that I have been to several of the places she describes in this book, and I feel that I am re-living those experiences while reading the book. Being another slightly over-weight strong athletic healthy live-life-to-the-fullest blonde, I feel I have found a sister, even if only in literary terms.

Rating:
Summary: I couldn't put it down
Review: Here is what happened to me....I bought this book on a whim. I was not sure I would like it. I started it on a Sunday. I finished it on a Monday. I read it in Illinois, but for two days I felt like I could have been in Italy, San Francisco or Morroco. I mean to say I loved this book!!!!! I was totally transported to another world and I felt I was involved in a love affair. I highly recommend this book. It is a wonderful memoir on many levels, a love story, a travelogue, a tutorial on how to get over a broken heart, and a simply put, just a really good read. It will be difficult to go to work tomorrow as opposed to an Italian island with the love of my life......

Rating:
Summary: Need an Excuse to Visit Italy?
Review: Fraser's book is a sincere story of love, hope, and healing. She recounts how an affair with a French professor leads her to regain a sense of self badly damaged when her husband deserts her. Anyone who has felt the pain of rejection can instantly sympathize. Fraser has a wonderful, lyrical style. She borrows Italian words to flavor her narrative. Her precise observations are often humorous, from the shopkeepers who "don't want to be responsible for any aesthetic errors walking around on the streets" to Napoli's traffic "zipping around without rules." Initially I found the second-person narration distracting but soon got caught up in her magical, triumphant tale.

Rating:
Summary: I didn't enjoy this book
Review: I read as much as I could...I got almost 1/2 of the way through and put it down. Written using the word 'you' instead of 'I' made me think she really didn't want to be associated with this story. Short sentences without any real emotion. Uninspiring and not 'full of hope' - I do not recommend this book.

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful!
Review: I loved this book. It is wonderfully written and really stays with the reader. I really felt close to the author as she explains her feelings and the exotic destinations she visited. It was very touching. I highly recommend it. If nothing else it will definitly get your travel bug brewing!

Rating:
Summary: A wonderful read!
Review: I found this book by chance during my last visit to the library. I'm not really fond of memoirs, but I thought the jacket sounded intriguing, so I thought I'd give it a try. When I finally cracked it open, I couldn't put it down! I loved the author's honest voice, and I enjoyed tagging along as she encountered all kinds of interesting people and visited a variety of great spots around the world. It's been a while since I read a truly wonderful story. Although this book is based on actual events, it reads like a great piece of fiction. I highly recommend it!

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful, I'm in love again!
Review: I can't beleive how much I loved this book! I usualluy don't read love stories but as I was reviewing the San Francisco Chronicle Best Sellers List I read a sentence about the book and I thought, hey, I'll give it try. So, I went to my library to order it and I knew it would take some time to get it, so picked a book called, "Last Time I Saw Paris" to read while I waited for it. That was also about a women finding romance. I thought know way this is real, nobody can meet a man of her dreams just like that! Well, I was wrong! Laura's tale about her adventures in Italy made me so jealous! Here she could travel to these remote islands (I did look up the islands and they did exsist) and speak the language and eat the most delcious food, it seemed if I would her our taste buds would be the same., I believe that true love does exsit even when you don't expect it. The believeable thing about the story, "M" was just an ordianry guy who smoked alot and had nice comfortable marriage but he and Laura were companions to the bitter end of their relationship. I believe all women now and then should have a romance like that. A secret that you can always dream about when your by your self and sometimes an old married women needs that so make her complete within herself and by reading that book it brought alot of old memories back about certain things in my life. I actually re-read the book. It was happy and loving and and it got me through a hard time in my life right now. Now what I want to know when will the seqel be out?
P.S. It took me days go get out of the trance of this book.

Rating:
Summary: My "Italy Fever" Continues
Review: Page after luring page, Laura Fraser's story is delightful, evocative, and above all, personal to the core. Her conversational style is intriguing, sexy, gutsy. Loved it! As an author myself with a book about Italy, I wish I could go back and add Laura's title to my own book's suggested list of "books that depict Italy".