Beautiful Ruins ⭐⭐⭐

Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter


Cover Wars
*SO*MANY*Beautiful Covers
3, 4 and 8 are my favs,
6 is a good one too. 

Fun fact about #6, Italian Cover at the end in Extra Tidbits.

Apparently I enjoy the images of the glamorous women over the beautiful coastal landscape. I'm not sure any of them really grab the storyline in a nutshell. Picturesque Italy vs Manipulative Hollywood.

G👀dreads About Summary

The story begins in 1962. On a rocky patch of the sun-drenched Italian coastline, a young innkeeper, chest-deep in daydreams, looks out over the incandescent waters of the Ligurian Sea and spies an apparition: a tall, thin woman, a vision in white, approaching him on a boat. She is an actress, he soon learns, an American starlet, and she is dying.

And the story begins again today, half a world away, when an elderly Italian man shows up on a movie studio's back lot—searching for the mysterious woman he last saw at his hotel decades earlier.

What unfolds is a dazzling, yet deeply human, roller coaster of a novel, spanning fifty years and nearly as many lives. From the lavish set of Cleopatra to the shabby revelry of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Walter introduces us to the tangled lives of a dozen unforgettable characters: the starstruck Italian innkeeper and his long-lost love; the heroically preserved producer who once brought them together and his idealistic young assistant; the army veteran turned fledgling novelist and the rakish Richard Burton himself, whose appetites set the whole story in motion—along with the husbands and wives, lovers and dreamers, superstars and losers, who populate their world in the decades that follow. Gloriously inventive, constantly surprising, Beautiful Ruins is a story of flawed yet fascinating people, navigating the rocky shores of their lives while clinging to their improbable dreams.

Genre: Historical Fiction, Italy, Romance

The How/Why: I'm totally attracted to Historical Fiction and Italy. PLUS narrator Edoardo Ballerini is an automatic yes. 

⭐⭐⭐  

🎉 Overall Storytelling? 🎉🎉🎉

🎣 Did it grab and keep my attention? 🎣🎣🎣

🗣️Would I recommend it to anyone? No ➖

🕮 Would I want a sequel? No ➖ 

📚 Would I want to read more books by this author? Maybe 🤷 

💣💥 📢 Content Warnings? Tɇrminɐl & Ƈhr0nic IℒℒneŞŞ, SȖbstɐncɇ AbŲsɇ, Infïdɇlïty & T0xic RɇlaṪi0nships

🌶 Spice? No. Some sex but not spicy

🌪 Plot Twist? No

👟 Pace? Meh

💻 Tidbits ~ There is a lot of bouncing back and forth, especially in the current timeline.

I enjoyed the Beautiful Italian Village and Resort (in both timelines).
I did not enjoy the Modern Hollywood Bizarre Culture.

I enjoyed Pasquale's warm heart. His desire to make his guests comfortable so they could enjoy his peaceful and beautiful slice of paradise. 
Then B̴A̴M̴! 💣 Hollywood chaos and multiple subplots. 
Then back to picturesque Italy and endearing easygoing relationship building between Pasquale and Dee. 

I could have done without the whole Donner Party story pitch. Yes Hollywood feeds off tragedies but I didn’t need the details of cannibalism to understand that Hollywood is a cutthroat business. It felt like a detour into history I didn’t sign up for. If it wasn’t for the expert narration by heartthrob Edoardo Ballerini I probably would have ‘ditched the pitch’ (and the book) and bowed out.

The search for Dee.
*Richard Burton storms in searching for Dee. Love triangle with Elizabeth Taylor!
*Alvis Bender’s writers block, a year later seeks out to find Dee in Seattle.
*Decades later Pasquale travels to America in search of Dee.
Dee, what kind of spell did you cast 🪄on these men that they can’t help but search you out?!?!

50 years between timelines, a puzzle of subplots, and the truth finally comes to light.

Favorite Quotes:

Alvis: “A writer needs four things to achieve greatness, Pasquale: desire, disappointment, and the sea.”
“That’s only three.”
Alvis finished his wine. “You have to do disappointment twice.”🎲🎲

In Italy Alvis asked Dee what she’ll do next.
Dee: “I’ll get one of your Americans to take me to New York City. I’ll live in the Empire State Building, eat ice cream every night in fancy New York restaurants and grow fat”.
Alvis: “I could take you to Wisconsin. You can get fat there.”

Favorite Character: I don’t really have one that sticks out (probably why the average rating). If I'd have to pick one it would be Pasquale’s mom. She was so wrapped up in the imaginary romance of her son and the American actress that she made a decision hoping their romance would become a reality. A Mother’s Love.

Historical Fiction ~ Facts vs Fiction:
Facts: The Cleopatra Disaster, including Joseph L Mankiewicz, the director. The Richard Burton-Elizabeth Taylor Affair.
Fiction: Everyone else including the location. Porto Vergogna the isolated fishing village is fictional. Porto Vergogna translates to Port of Shame! 🫣

🎧 Narrator: Edoardo Ballerini 💓

🎧12.53 hours 🕮 337 pages

Extra Tidbits

Fun fact about the Italian Book Cover. There is a quote in the center of the cover. I asked Google AI what it says in English. "A wonder, a true jewel, hilarious and heartbreaking at the same time". Attributed to the Huffington Post book review.
Title "Ricorda di non Dimenticarmi" translates to Remember Not To Forget Me. It was also released in Italy under the title of "Come Fosse un Sogno" = As if it Were a Dream. 

It kind of gives the illusion that the story is primarily about Dee/Debra, which in reality she has about 25-30%. 

 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

When Women Ran Fifth Avenue *DNF*

Image
  When Women Ran Fifth Avenue by Julie Satow *DNF* The cover is the best part G👀dreads A glittering, glamorous portrait of the golden age of American department stores and of three visionary women who led them, from the award-winning author of The Plaza . The American department a palace of consumption that epitomized modern consumerism. Every wish could be met under one roof – afternoon tea, a stroll through the latest fashions, a wedding (or funeral) planned. It was a place where women, shopper and shopgirl alike, could stake out a newfound independence. Whether in New York or Chicago or on Main Street, USA, men owned the buildings, but inside, women ruled. Genre: NonFiction, History, Fashion, Biography. Circa early 1900's. I listened a little while I was puttering around in the casita in the morning. There is a part where she says the sales ladies would say "Oh Harriett" to warn another employee that a customer could not be pleased. Like a take off of modern day ...
Read more

Killers of a Certain Age ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Image
Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn From Goodreads: Older women often feel invisible, but sometimes that's their secret weapon. They've spent their lives as the deadliest assassins in a clandestine international organization, but now that they're sixty years old, four women friends can't just retire - it's kill or be killed in this action-packed thriller. Billie, Mary Alice, Helen, and Natalie have worked for the Museum, an elite network of assassins, for forty years. Now their talents are considered old-school and no one appreciates what they have to offer in an age that relies more on technology than people skills. When the foursome is sent on an all-expenses paid vacation to mark their retirement, they are targeted by one of their own. Only the Board, the top-level members of the Museum, can order the termination of field agents, and the women realize they've been marked for death. Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Fiction ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ I really liked it a lot. It ho...
Read more

Home of the American Circus ⭐⭐⭐⭐💫

Image
Home of the American Circus by Allison Larken  G👀dreads After an emergency leaves her short on rent, thirty-year-old Freya Arnalds bails on her lackluster life as bartender in Maine and returns to her suburban hometown of Somers, New York, to live in the house she inherited from her estranged parents. Despite attempts to lay low, Freya encounters childhood friends, familial enemies, and old flames—as well as her fifteen-year-old niece, Aubrey, who is secretly living in the derelict home. As they reconnect, Freya and Aubrey lean on each other, working to restore the house and come to terms with the devastating events that pulled them apart years ago. Set in the birthplace of the American circus, this deeply moving novel is an exploration of broken families, the weight of the past, and the complicated journey of finding home. Genre: Literary Fiction, Contemporary, Family Drama Dual Timeline: ETA: This is listed as dual timeline but I thought it was more like memory flashbacks. It's ...
Read more