A NIGHT OWL REVIEWS BOOK REVIEW | Reviewed by: Cute Writer
P.O. Box Love is a charming epistolary novel that chronicles the love story between Emma and Frederico, former high school sweethearts who meet again thirty years later. At Dreams&Desires, 50-year-old Emma's quaint bookshop in Milan dedicated to romantic fiction, the passionate bookseller serves coffee and tea to her customers and completes order slips in pen rather than using a computer. One day, she finds a mysterious handwritten note stuck between the pages of a novel. The message is from her high school sweetheart Frederico, who is now a successful architect in New York and whom she hasn't seen in thirty years. When she finally meets Frederico again, Emma is convinced that her life is about to turn into a romance novel - an intercontinental fairy tale between Milan and New York, between two post office boxes and two lovers that are separated by the Atlantic Ocean and half a life. But Frederico is married, and their epistolary romance, punctuated by once-a-year sojourns on the island of Belle Ile, seems to have no future. PO Box Love is an ode to old-fashioned relationships (the ones that last a lifetime), old-fashioned habits (such as writing letters by hand in fountain pen) and old-fashioned notions (such as politeness, and the great lost art of conversation), and will enchant readers of such perennial favorites as 84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff and Same Time Next Year by Bernard Slade I laughed a cried with Emma and Frederico. I found myself turning up a nose at their situation, and I found myself rooting for them. Point blank, these two characters brought me into their world and made me care about them, that is what an amazing story does. It does not just inform you, it takes you out of your chair and onto a journey. In the case of Emma and Frederico, it was a lifetime well spent. This is a novel that I would gladly put on my shelf to reread over and over again, just because I miss Emma's quirks. She seemed almost like a mirror version of myself, and I enjoyed every word that she spoke. I found myself pouring over the pages at night, just trying to see what would happen next. I would recommend this book to an older audience, thirty and up. Younger generations that did not grow up with paper and pen would not appreciate this love story as much.
Dec 26, 2011 | 9780312625702
5 - Rare Top Pick | 4.5 - Top Pick | 4 - I Liked It | 3.5 - Enjoyable | 3 - OK | 2.5 - It just didn't click
Book Blurb for P.O. Box Love
A charming epistolary novel that chronicles the love story between Emma and Frederico, former high school sweethearts who meet again thirty years later. At Dreams & Desires, 50-year-old Emma's quaint bookshop in Milan dedicated to romantic fiction, the passionate bookseller serves coffee and tea to her customers and completes order slips in pen rather than using a computer. One day, she finds a mysterious handwritten note stuck between the pages of a novel. The message is from her high school sweetheart Frederico, who is now a successful architect in New York and whom she hasn't seen in thirty years. When she finally meets Frederico again, Emma is convinced that her life is about to turn into a romance novel - an intercontinental fairy tale between Milan and New York, between two post office boxes and two lovers that are separated by the Atlantic Ocean and half a life. But Frederico is married, and their epistolary romance, punctuated by once-a-year sojourns on the island of Belle Ile, seems to have no future. PO Box Love is an ode to old-fashioned relationships (the ones that last a lifetime), old-fashioned habits (such as writing letters by hand in fountain pen) and old-fashioned notions (such as politeness, and the great lost art of conversation), and will enchant readers of such perennial favorites as 84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff and Same Time Next Year by Bernard Slade.
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