Lucia, Lucia

I was totally enchanted. For those reviewers below who didn't enjoy it, perhaps they are too young to appreciate the nostalgia and sentiment in reading the life story of a seventysome year old woman. Also, for those of us who lived in the 50's, this was a charming return. (Most of the story centers around the 50's.) Also, I did not find the ending weak at all, as someone suggested. It had me in tears. I plan to read all of Ms Trigiani books written in the past and the future.

Lucia, Lucia has everything I love to read about: fashion, art, travel, food, religion, love, and most importantly family. I loved it when the family visited Italy, I felt like I was there with Lucia and Rosemary walking the streets of Rome. Lucia's family means everything to her, especially her Papa. Lucia believes she is cursed in love, but getting married is not her dream like it is for her friends. She wants more! Work is important to her. She loves her job at B. Altman's working with her best friends Ruth and Delmarr. I loved that this took place in the early 50's because it's untraditional to what I know about the 50's. I'm crazy about this book and will keep it because there are some recipes in it I can't wait to try like tartufo (snowballs). I would recommend this to sisters, friends, mothers, and mother-in-laws.

Adriana Trigiani has a rare gift for gently sweeping her readers into a world that is filled with rich characters, inviting us into a story that feels like family. Lucia, Lucia is a tender and sweet story that is neither overly sentimental nor unrealistically dramatic. Adriana has woven together family relationships, romance, tragedy and nostalgia in a way that is comforting in its familiarity. I was left wanting to rush out, find an older person and listen to their life story.Readers who have enjoyed the Big Stone Gap triology will be especially thrilled with the new venue of Greenwich Village in Lucia, Lucia. Adriana's ability to vividly sketch people and places is as evident in New York as it has been in Virgina. Her wit and warmth make you feel as if you are a welcome guest whereever she takes you.Having just turned the last page, I enthusiastically recommend Lucia, Lucia, and head back to my own book shelves to revisit Big Stone Gap.

I was sad to have finished Lucia, Lucia so quickly I devoured it. What a fabulous read. The story centers on an older Lucia reminiscing of her younger days in the 1950's. Wow, what a lady Lucia was. She had the glamorous life that included her family, friends, work and a male suitor or two.The characters in this book are much different from the characters in the Stone Gap series; however, these characters are just as real. Bravo

I haven't read her other books but do plan to now. From the moment I opened Lucia, Lucia it was as though the book was glued to my hands. It was as though I was transported as an invisible voyuer in to the Sartori home - I felt every emotion because she wrote it so brilliantly. I laughed, I got angry and I sobbed more than once. By the end you feel as though you knew all these people from Lucia to Dellmar to her brothers - all of them. And it's hard to say good bye when you reach the last page because in a mere 260 pages you come to feel you were on the journey with her. To me the sign of a great book is one in which you just can't bare to reach the last page and have it end. Bellisima!