Lucia, Lucia

I headed out into the woods for 8 days camping with 5 books.  A little optimistic but I like to have choices, plus sometimes I've been a known to read 3 or 4 books it just depends on nap times.

I was able to read 2 full books and start a third and I could have read more but some people apparently wanted to hang out and talk during nap time.  What?? My only alone time of the week and I had to give up a few days to talk.  I am not a people person.  I like to be alone.  A lot.  That's why I read.  Alone. ;)

“When people are filled to the brim with love, they are their most beautiful.”

Anyway, the second book I read of the week was Lucia, Lucia by Adriana Trigiani.  I picked up two of Trigiani's books from the used book fair last summer and wanted finally give them a whirl. I'm glad I picked Lucia, Lucia because of how quickly I was sucked into the world of Lucia Sartori.

Lucia is a career girl.  She is 25 and lives at home with her parents and brothers.  Every day she heads off to work doing what she loves and every weekend she irons and cleans her brothers clothes.  She's engaged to Dante and seems to have it all. 

Description: It is 1950 in glittering, vibrant New York City. Lucia Sartori is the beautiful twenty-five-year-old daughter of a prosperous Italian grocer in Greenwich Village. The postwar boom is ripe with opportunities for talented girls with ambition, and Lucia becomes an apprentice to an up-and-coming designer at chic B. Altman's department store on Fifth Avenue. Engaged to her childhood sweetheart, the steadfast Dante DeMartino, Lucia is torn when she meets a handsome stranger who promises a life of uptown luxury that career girls like her only read about in the society pages. Forced to choose between duty to her family and her own dreams, Lucia finds herself in the midst of a sizzling scandal in which secrets are revealed, her beloved career is jeopardized, and the Sartoris' honor is tested.

So many times I felt so bad for Lucia.  There were times when if she had been 25 in say 2000 her choices and her life would have been steered in a different path. 

"The good things that happen to us were meant to happen, and the bad things that happen are lessons meant to teach us to be better.”

Lucia seemed to have a peace with the way her life ended up, but it doesn't mean there wasn't hurt and disappointment that came with the changing of her paths. 

The only disappointing part was when it changed back to present day with Kit.  Lucia's voice was strong but  Kit's parts read a bit awkward.  Such a small part of the book, so I'd highly recommend it for a quick summer read!

Have you read any books by Adriana Trigani? I just started Big Stone Gap and I wasn't sucked in as quickly as Lucia, Lucia.  Have you read any other books set in the 1950s you'd recommend?