Travel to Italy

Bella Tuscany: The Sweet Life in Italy

Format: Paperback
Author: Frances Mayes
ReleaseDate: 04 April, 2000
Publisher: Broadway
Rating:

Disappointing
Perhaps I didn't give Mayes enough of a chance: I assumed she would be a female version of Peter Mayle, and write with joy and humor. I had heard about UtTS and how wonderful it was, so when a copy of Bella Tuscany came my way, I grabbed it happily.

After about a third of the way through, I was thoroughly sick of her whining and sniveling. Her descriptions of food and landscape and wine, I thought, were less than dazzling, less than enamoured - they were more like descriptions from a creative writing class. Mayes became a traveling companion that annoyed me, someone who could not appreciate her good fortune, a drain on anyone's good humor.

I never did finish the book. I couldn't see my way to spend another moment with Mayes.

If wishes were horses we'd be eating steak
I get that Frances Mayes works her [. I get that it is the sweet life in Tuscany. . . ] off planting roses and whirling all over the country side searching for the prefect tile for the butterfly bathroom. I get that she became an overnight success and very well know because of a movie based so loosely on her book Under the Tuscan Sun it was an eerily reminder of Demi Moore's version of The Scarlet Letter. I have never set foot in Italy although I know people who have. Frances Mayes is not one of them. Bully for you. I feel very put out by the book jacket glossing over all the really depressing things that run all over the "sensuous and evocative prose. " And what was in the package Ed had in his suitcase for her for Christmas - what is the bloody point in saying how small it was if we don't get to find out what it was! It was like reading the ramblings of a spoiled child.

Boring
I only read this far hoping that soon it would become as interesting as her first book, but sadly I feel I've wasted enough time listening to the boring rants of wine, gardens, and other writers. I am about half way through the book and can't bring myself to read another page. . . If you'd like to read whole chapters devoted to describing gardens and flowers and if you like to whole chapters devoted to recipes she's come across while in Tuscany, you'll enjoy this book. The only parts I enjoyed were her travels to other parts of the country.

Related products:
click image or link for details on these Italy travel books.

	In Tuscany
	The Most Beautiful Villages of Tuscany (Most Beautiful Villages)