One Italian Summer Book Review

The loss of a parent at any age is difficult. It is harder when you are close to that parent.

Rebecca Serle‘s new novel, One Italian Summer, was published earlier this month. After years of battling cancer, Carol Silver has succumbed to the disease. No one is more devastated than her daughter, Katy. They were more than mother and daughter, they were best friends. Carol was the one who Katy turned to when she needed advice and support.

Matters are made worse by the potential cancelation of a trip to the Amalfi Coast in Italy that they had been planning and the possible break up of Katy’s marriage. Needing a break from everything, she decides to make the trip alone. When she arrives at her destination, Katy starts to feel Carol is still with her. Walking in her mother’s footsteps, she visit the same places Carol had been to thirty years ago.

Walking into her hotel one night, she sees her mother standing in front of her. But this Carol is not the woman Katy saw in the hospital bed. This Carol is young and healthy. Katy has to decide if she will only remember the woman she knew or get to know the younger woman who has no clue as to what the future holds.

To say that this book is amazing is an understatement. It’s a story of grief, hope, love, and finding yourself in the midst of the storm of loss. What made it special was the slight but super important science fiction element of the narrative that made it more than just the story of a daughter losing her mother.

Do I recommend it? Absolutely.

One Italian Summer is available wherever books are sold.

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Andrew Cuomo Has No Place in NY Politics

After a political scandal, the wise thing to do is to keep your head down and hope that in time, you will no longer be front-page news.

Former NY Governor Andrew Cuomo believes otherwise. He has announced that he will re-enter politics, though to what end remains unclear at this point. In his most recent ad, he claims that he made “mistakes”.

What he did was not a mistake. A mistake is accidentally brushing against someone in a crowded elevator. What he did to those women was textbook sexual harassment. This is a moral failing that in my mind, automatically knocks him out of whatever race he intends to run on. What is worse is that there appears to be a growing number of people who are supporting him.

This is nothing but a way to inflate his ego. He knows what he did was wrong. In this #MeToo era, actions like these do not go unnoticed or unpunished. The fact that he is downplaying it tells me everything I need to know about Andrew Cuomo. If he decides to run for office, he will not get my vote. I hope my fellow New Yorkers will do the same.