Jess has always done what her family expected of her without complaint. But when her beloved Uncle Louie dies suddenly, she has the opportunity to leave her New Jersey home for an extended stay near her family’s ancestral home in Carrara, Italy. While there, Jess gets to explore what she really wants and decide for herself what her future looks like.

The View From Lake Como by Adriana Trigiani explores the messiness of big, extended families and the expectations that can be put on individual members. Both of Jess’s parents are first-generation Italian American, and her grandparents came from two different regions of Italy.

While the descriptions of life in both New Jersey and Italy were interesting, I never quite felt like the characters clicked. Flashbacks in the form of journal entries to therapists provided background, but they also took me out of the present tense of the story too frequently.

All in all it’s an interesting light read, but I think it could have done more to explore the issues that Jess confronted in her journey of self discovery.

The publisher provided a copy of this title in exchange for my honest review.