Only in Naples - Katherine Wilson

Title: Only in Naples: Lessons in Food and Famiglia from My Italian Mother-in-Law
Author: Katherine Wilson
Genre: Memoir, Cultural
Rating: 4/5
# pages: 304
Date read: January, 2016

I love living vicariously through other people - especially on travels - so the minute I saw the description of "Only in Naples", I knew it would be right up my aisle. Katherine Wilson travels to Napoli - originally only for 6 months - and ends up falling in love with the city, the people, the mentality and the language... and when her future husband's family take her in as one of their own, she knew she was never going back.

The first few chapters were a bit slow-moving. I got slightly frustrated with Katherine at times, and wasn't sure where she was going with her memoir. As she became more familiar with the country and its customs the frustrations lessened though, and before long it came to the point that I smiled involuntarily just from picking up the book, because its charm had so completely captivated me that I felt like I knew these people, and were reading about friends of mine.

Originally I'd assumed it to be a travelogue, but it's more a story of an unexpecting ex-pat falling in love with a new country. As such, it didn't inspire my wanderlust, as much as it made me relive my own experiences abroad, and I therefore connected with the book on a different level than I had expected, and found it intensely relateable.

Highly recommendable.