Dit boek las ik eerder in 2007 en ik herinnerde me bij herlezen alleen de sfeer, niet de gebeurtenissen. Mooi geschreven verhaal waarin de reis van hoofdpersoon Lara met haar vader naar Siena wordt afgewisseld met stukjes over de reis die Lara als kind met haar moeder maakte naar India. Eerste verliefdheid, verkrachting, familiegeheimen ... Ik vond het ook bij herlezing een mooi boek. ( )

This book goes down deceptively easy, and I think readers may be tempted to treat it as a light summer read because of the topic (going-to-Italy and coming-of-age) but it is actually very carefully crafted and thoughtfully structured. In my view the whole point of the novel is that through her problematic and ambiguous encounter with the aristocracy, Lara gains an experience that allows her to develop greater sympathy for and understanding for her father. She is a young person who becomes caught up in a wealthy aristocratic world in which she is partially and very provisionally included, though she clearly does not 'belong.' That was, in a more extreme form, the same predicament her father found himself in as a child. The Willoughbys' tentative acceptance of Lara as an individual is tempered by their disdain for her kind. Kip is the lover whose wealth and nobility are part of his charm, Roland is the rapist whose class-based contempt is part of his hatefulness, and both are inextricably part of the same circle. She cannot have the one without dealing with the other. In the end, Lara finds herself desperately appealing to these people who owe her nothing for help so that she may rescue her father -- a small, mild version of the terrible predicament in which he found himself. The Palio presented to her a vision of how the classes might unite around shared cultural enthusiasms, while her intimate encounter with class inequalities breathed new life and interest into her school readings on the French Revolution and the Grapes of Wrath. ( )

Initially, this book sucked me in. I was very interested in young Lara's first trip to Italy with the father she barely knew, and I was hoping to learn more as their relationship grew. Unfortunately, it didn't. About 60 pages in, it becomes the story of a rather wimpy, emotionally self-indulgent teenager who is obsessed with a beautiful rich boy . . . I felt like I was back in Twilight, reading Bella's cheesey descriptions of Edward. (Her decriptions of Lulu are almost as bad!) Her idolization of the idle--and generally mean and stupid--rich soon got to be a bore, and I couldn't wait to finish this one and turn it over to some poor sucker who wishlisted it on a swap site. The only plus I can give it is that, as someone below mentioned, Freud does a fine job of creating the feel of an Italian summer and of describing the surroundings in which Lara finds herself. ( )

This book made me long for summer; I could feel the sun on my skin as the characters did. The story kept my interest, the characters were interesting and likeable when they should have been and I found the ending satisfying. I recommend it for an intelligent but not difficult read. - Fiona ( )

Wat een slechtgeschreven rotboek, kwam met alle mogelijke moeite niet verder dan pagina 80.. ( )