The Food of Love - Anthony Capella

Published by Nancy Williams on September 5, 2008

I have taken more than a month to write this book up. And, what’s worse is that it has been more than a month since I have actually finished a book! Can you imagine?! Me?! Oddly enough, I am part way through about 8 books at the moment and I have decided to stop this summer silliness (seeing summer is now completely over here in London - it is raining outside, just like it has been for at least a month) and get on and finish some of these books. I have 4 books to read and review which I have been requested to write up, two library books from my reading group that I am determined to finish, plus a couple of books from Goodreads groups which I want to discuss. It’s a tough old life…

Anyway, on to the actual topic of this blog - The Food of Love. I thought this was a delightful, light piece of chicklit with a smattering of Perfume (without the darkness). It wasn’t challenging in any way, and the love story was pretty predictable but surrounded as it was by Italian food of a richness I could never have imagined (and I am not sure I would really want to try in many cases), it made for a pleasant and easy read. Bear in mind, I read this hot on the heels of Kiran Desai and so something light and easy was perfect.

The characters did lean towards being caricatures or definitely stereotypes in many cases. Bruno was so excruciatingly wet at times that you wanted to shake him. Laura was fickle and Tomasso was slightly irritating. But they did manage to come together in a lovely, albeit slightly silly story. One had to suspend one’s disbelief somewhat and a couple of the humourous stories were a bit contrived (ecstacy on the pizza? Hmmm, not so sure) but the book was not written to deliver a deep message or give the reader something to think about. It was pure escapism and because of that, it succeeded well.

My reading group was a little surprised at my reaction to this book because normally I am quite disparaging about flippant, slightly pointless books - but I forgave The Food of Love because it was summer and because I needed something to brighten things up after my previous read.

Rating: 7/10
ISBN: 0-7515-3569-9
Publisher: Time Warner Books
Year: 2004
Date Finished: 30 July 2008
Pages: 310
Challenges: