The Shoemaker's Wife

I can't remember the last Trigiani book I read, but I know it was back when my most challenging reads were because of length of the novel rather than depth of the prose. I'm afraid I wasn't expecting a whole lot from this book.

I'm happy to say that I judged this book too harshly before I'd even really taken a look at it. It is, in fact, a nicely told tale of historical fiction. It felt surprisingly true, with little details about the time in which it was set that gave it substance. It's not a time with which we are too familiar and it's not a place we know well either and that adds to the charm of the story.

I'm not one for long books and I'm not wild about a romance and I'm not a big fan of historical fiction, but somehow this book overcame all my (highly opinionated) objections and won me over. I liked the story and you probably will, too.

This book was sooo good!!!! The blurb on the back of the book is all about the romance between Enza and Ciro and makes this book sound like it's going to just be a cheesy love story (that's actually why I held off reading it for so long)... but the story is so much more than that! It's about their families and their lives intertwining before they even realized it. It's about making your place in the world and the people along the way who turn into home. This book was perfectly written, constantly emotional. And the ending is so sweet... prepare to cry... a good ugly cry.