i started reading this book while i was in summer school, and it’s a beautiful memoir of life in italy… and now i really want to travel 🙂 i didn’t have time to actually finish the whole thing, but there were only a couple pages left when i returned it to the library. the writing was excellent, which was the main reason i was reading it actually. one of my teachers had recommended it during a writing class and it sounded like a fun/ educational summer read.
reading it makes me hungry, though! she constantly talks about all the amazing italian food and fruits and desserts, but it was great. there are recipes in the middle of the book (for foods that are perfect during summer) and then towards the end there’s another section of winter recipes.
after reading, i decided that living and writing in europe would be an amazing experience. maybe the summer after graduation…
then one sunday afternoon i was trying to find something good on tv for background while i finished homework and the movie was on. i wanted to watch it because i had read so many bad reviews of the movie but the book seemed great. when i looked it up on amazon.com, i was concerned because they even admitted it was based “loosely” on the book. since most movie versions of books seem pretty loosely-based, i knew it had to extremely different for the company to admit it.
and it was.
it was awful! the movie makes Frances seem almost frivolous and desperate as she buys the house while visiting italy for the first time (in the book she and her boyfriend looked at houses for many summers until they found Bramasole). and then the movie doesn’t introduce Ed until the last scene, which was disappointing because he had such a big part in the book right from the beginning. overall, the movie was really slow and boring and doesn’t show her many adventures of fixing the house or the beautiful italy. it focuses on frances trying to find herself and get over her divorce. very disappointing.
so if you’ve seen the movie and given up on the book, read the book and don’t expect anything similar. memoirs are usually kind of slow reads, but under the tuscan sun is great to read while sitting outside enjoying the sun 🙂
