Review: Flirting In Italian by Lauren Henderson

Title: Flirting In Italian
Author: Lauren Henderson
Series: Book One in the Flirting In Italian Series
Published By: Random House (June 12, 2012)
Source: ARC Provided by the Publisher
Genre: YA Realistic Fiction
My Rating: 3 Stars

Goodreads Description
 Four girls. One magical, and possibly dangerous Italian summer. Family mysteries, ancient castles, long hot nights of dancing under the stars . . . and, of course, plenty of gorgeous Italian boys!

My Review:

I think when I first read the synopsis of this book I was expecting more along the lines of YA chick lit, instead I found that this was more along the lines of YA realistic fiction.

The main character Violet is really trying to find herself in this novel, it isn't really about love or falling in love but about knowing herself and finding out somethings that she has suspected her whole life about her past but never wanted to question out loud.

Once I got past that initial shock I found myself enjoying the book more. Don't get me wrong I love realistic fiction with a dash of mystery, but since I was looking for something else at the time I opened this book up, I was in fact a little disappointed with it and it took me a few chapters to warm up to it.

I don't want to give anything away which is going to make this a hard review to write without seeming like I hated it or judging it based on the fact that I went into the story expecting one thing and got something else entirely.

I liked the story but we never got any real conclusion about the guy Violet liked and even about her past. I kept reading this getting closer and closer to the end and thinking, okay some stuff is going to have to start happening or this isn't going to end with any of the questions answered and it did in fact end just the way I feared it would. It did end with absolutely nothing answered and a small note to check the rest of the story out in the sequel. Again, I didn't even know this wasn't a stand alone.

I can't help feeling a little cheated and upset by that. I am not even sure I liked this one enough to read the sequel. There was just too much about it that was left with a cliffhanger and unanswered which okay, knowing it has a sequel now I can see why it was done that way and it does make sense, there has to be something for the next book of course but again...I wish I would have known that going into this read.

So overall, I don't know how to rate this, I think if I would have started it knowing all these things in advance I would have no problem giving it around 4 stars but because I didn't, I think to be fair, I am going to give it 3 stars and call it good.