After her mother’s death, sixteen-year old Lina has to fulfill her mother’s dying wish - by traveling across the ocean to Italy, a country she’s never been to. Add to that staying with Howard, a man she’s never met and having to be separated from everything that reminds her of her mom, Lina can’t wait to get away from this shockingly beautiful place.

Yet, as her mother did years before her, Lina starts to fall in love with it all. The city, the countryside, the boys, the freedom. 

That all comes crashing down when she receives a journal, written by her mother when she was in Italy seventeen years earlier. As her and Ren, her only - and very cute - friend travel around Italy discovering her mother’s past, Lina is confronted with a choice she doesn’t quite know how to make: does she really want to know where she comes from?

The only way to describe Love and Gelato is to say that it is an Italian summer in a book. Lina’s story was expertly crafted, being that there is so many layers to not her own life, but also her mother’s. Full of friendship, grief, love and gelato, this story is a fantastic heart warmer, and I guarantee you’ll barely be able to put it down.

There honestly aren’t any stories that truly compare to that of Jenna Evans Welch’s, but I’d try authors like Katie Finn, Morgan Matson and David Leviathan if Love & Gelato piques your interest.