July - theme: Summer
Cooking with Fernet Branca by James Hamilton-Paterson
There were a lot of options in my bookcase for a book fitting the theme of "Summer". I'm not sure why I picked this one but I'm fairly glad I did. Summer makes me think of Rom-Coms and 'beach reads' with entirely formulaic plots. The plot of this book was neither formulaic or relevant. The fun and wit here lay entirely in the character development of Gerald and Marta. It was well written and really very funny. Since it wasn't plot driven it was actually fairly hard to make good progress on this book. I only just made it within my self-imposed time limit. A book that you put down and forgot about until you unearthed it at the bottom of a bag and said to yourself, "oh yes, this thing, this was hilarious - why did I stop reading it"
As a fellow ex-pat I enjoyed reading about both Gerald's and Marta's failure to fully fit into Italy despite both speaking the language fluently. The relationship between the two of them - both foreigners in Italy and foreign to each other, was hilarious.
Like the film Mad Max Fury Road, a lot was going on but nothing happened, and I loved it.