Urbino unexpectedly
by Maria Chiara Marsciani
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Reviewed for +Readers' Favorite .
Is it good enough to go through life doing the right thing and never causing your parents any problems? Even if you aren't happy with the choices that you are making, can you live a good life making other people happy? Clara is in law school only because she thought it was what her parents wanted her to do. Her father is a surgeon and not the type to express his feelings to her. Her mother is a socialite bent on keeping Clara doing edxactly as she says. One night, out with friends Clara met Leonardo, a doctor and it is love from the start. They begin dating, and he allows her to be who she is, never telling her what to do or what to think. As Urbino, Unexpectedly continues on Clara finds herself answering first questions and coming into her own. At the same time realizing that having Leonardo, who is not telling her what to do in her life is the best thing she has ever had. Maria Chiara Marsciani gives the reader a story of love and self-discovery, parental control and breaking free all wrapped in the beauty of Italy.
Urbino, Unexpectedly confronts the dysfunctional family that Clara has been raised in, but also some of the friendships that she has allowed herself that have fed off her family relationship. As she becomes stronger, her grandmother is the one person who cheers her in this, but at the same time you see grandma relaxing and saying, "finally, my work is done". Maria Chiara Marciani gives the reader a complex story with a number of different veins. Some of the characters are quite shallow, but the main characters are good and have some qualities that make you want to read and see what happens. This is a women's story, and would even be good for a book club discussion.
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Dream Doctor
by J.J. DiBenedetto
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
**Reviewed for +Readers' Favorite .
Sara is getting married and staring med school, her husband Brian is going to finish his last year of undergraduate. What she really doesn't need is to be seeing other people's dreams, but that is just what happens to Sara every now and again. Dream Doctor follows Sara and a small group of friends through their first year of med school. At the same time Sara is having dreams, lots of dreams of someone murdering their professor. Actually it's not someone, it's lots of someone's and she can't figure out who is just dreaming about killing him and who is actually trying to kill him. J.J. DiBenedetto writes a humorous and quirky mystery as the clumsy med student tries to deal with not only the dreams about the professor, but the dreams of the neighbor next door and a few other close friends.
Dream Doctor is what I would call on of the new generation of cozy mystery stories. It is a lite, humorous and energetic take on the mystery idea all wrapped in the theme of the doctor, or med school in this case. Sara is a little hard to like at times. Sometimes she comes off bold and strong and other times she is mousy and unsure of herself. I find I like her much better when she is confident and secure. Sara occasional sees other people's dreams and sometimes that is fine, but sometimes she needs to do something about what she sees. J.J. DiBenedetto writes a unique concept in this regard, it's not every person she meets and it's not every night, there seems to be no rhyme or reason to why she sees the dreams she sees. For a light-hearted easy read this is a good book for that. If you like the cozy mystery sub-genre you will like this book.
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Wayne Hicks Review
Penelope Bartotto Review
KC Sprayberry Review
****To be honest, I would probably give this book a closer to a 3 star, more like a 3.25 star rating, but I wanted to post my review of it, so I went ahead and rounded the rating up to a 4 star.*******
