50 pages • 1 hour read
Jenna Evans WelchA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
In many ways, Florence itself is a character in the stories of both Lina and Hadley. Take any of these three spots in the city that are key to the emotional growth of both characters and explore the relationship between the spot and its respective impact on the mother and daughter: The Duomo, the Ponte Vecchio, or the 400-step stone staircase at the Campanile di Giotto.
How does the novel utilize Matteo Rossi, Ren’s father back in Texas, and Howard Mercer to explore The Definition of a Father? Cite specific examples from the text to support your argument.
The story has two first-person narrators. What does the novel gain or lose by dividing the narration between the mother and daughter? How does Hadley’s journal help Lina understand her own romantic dilemma? How does the journal help bring Lina closure over her mother’s death?
When Lina first sees Ren’s home (Chapter 5), she immediately compares it to the witch’s cottage in the fairy tale of Hansel and Gretel. Explore the symbolic importance of that comparison. What themes of the classic fairy tale are echoed in Lina’s own transition into adulthood?
The novel uses a plethora of pop culture references including the film Roman Holiday, the music of The Beatles, the child’s card game Go Fish, Jimmy Buffett, James Bond, Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, the film Dirty Dancing, Scooby-Doo, The Wizard of Oz, AC/DC, U2, the J. Geils song “Love Stinks,” and America’s Next Top Model. Choose any referent, research it, review where it appears in the novel, and discuss how that element of pop culture helps underscore what is happening in Welch’s plot.
Explicate Lina’s epiphany atop the Campanile di Giotto in Chapter 24. How has she matured from the girl who fears that everyone finds her quiet, unfriendly, and arrogant? What factors have contributed to her new sense of joy?
“I made the wrong choice” (92), Hadley writes in her journal in bold Sharpie print so that both Howard and Lina will know the truth of her experience. How does Lina’s understanding of the cryptic sentence change and evolve over the course of the story? How does Lina’s dilemma between Ren and Thomas Heath exemplify Hadley’s view of her own choices? Cite specific examples from the text to support your argument.
Sonia tells Lina, “People come to Italy for all sorts of reasons, but when they stay, it’s for the same two things…love and gelato” (322). The book uses gelato to suggest the rich and almost decadent energy of Italy. When Lina arrives in Florence, she does not even know what gelato is. Using the three scenes in which Lina samples gelato, discuss the ways in which the novel parallels love and gelato.
Throughout the opening chapters, Welch threads a motif of death and loss. Using that premise and the closing two paragraphs of the story, write a character analysis of Lina’s symbolic journey back from the dead during her summer in Florence.
“A life without love is like a year without summer” (376), Howard says. Although Lina initially pities Howard with his cemetery job, his stacks of vintage vinyl records, and his expatriate life far from his native South Carolina, Welch ultimately positions him as the novel’s heroic embodiment of love. Using specific examples from the text, how does Howard contribute to the novel’s discussion of The Difference Between Love and Passion?
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