Customer Reviews

Sometimes I Dream in Italian

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Rita Ciresi just gets better every time I read her. I started with Pink Slip, which did not impress me very well. Then on to Blue Italian, which blew me away. And now with Sometimes I Dream in Italian, a book of connected short stories about the Italian Lupo family, I believe Ms. Ciresi has reached her pinnacle. Definitely a book not to be missed.

Told through the eyes of the youngest Lupo daughter, Angel, the first half of the book documents her childhood with her beautiful, better sister, Lina, and their two strange and boring parents. Growing up in New Haven, Connecticut, life couldn't be more stagnant. Angel and Lina both long to rid themselves of their Italian heritage and be buxom and blonde Hollywood movie stars dripping with diamonds. Instead they are stuck in an old-fashioned time-warp with a mother who quite possibly could be the World's Most Prepared and a father who is nothing more than a measly soda delivery man with stinky feet. The second half of the book flash-forwards to Angel's and Lina's adulthood. It is interesting to see how the two girls grew up and branched out in different directions. Although, behind the normalcy, there is pain and heartache.

Sometimes I Dream in Italian explores the intricate relationship between the two sisters, their family, and their dreams. At times hilarious, yet heartwrenching and poignant, these stories will draw emotions out of you as only good writing can do. Nice flow and beautifully written. Looking forward to reading more Ciresi -- she has now become a favorite.

Growing up in an Italian-American household is described in this book in very humorous yet poignant vignettes. Angel and Lina Lupo are sisters whose overbearing Italian immigrant parents have dominated every aspect of their lives from the food they eat to the clothes they wear to the men they date. Angel, the more introspective sister, lives vicariously through Lina, the prettier, more popular sister. Both rebel openly and sarcastically against their parents, often causing them to be punished together. Descriptions of their house, their daily lives, their relatives, and their escapades are often uproariously funny, yet at the same time, somewhat tragic, reflecting impossible expectations of parents who were brought up differently. Italian-American baby boomers will certainly relate to the Lupo sisters.

Rita Ciresi's talent as a writer of short stories is no more evident than in this collection, where her stories sing with language and emotion and details so realistic that you'll believe every sentence.

SOMETIMES I DREAM IN ITALIAN is divided into two sections: Ragazza-Girl and Donna-Woman. Within each section, we are treated to the awkward life of Angel, who struggles to reconcile her origins with her present self - and her imagined future self. Her Italian immigrant parents embarrass her and her sister Lina with their Old World ways and names. The girls just want to become glamorous, with underwear they'll throw out after one wearing and diamonds dripping from their necks. But their mother refuses to let them forget where they came from. As the two girls grow into disappointed women, with dreams they've had to adjust, Angel says (of German grammar, but it applies to her life), "I could not tell the who from the how and the where from the why." While I was reading this collection, I often laughed out loud, but, just as often, I felt the sorrow between the words.

Although this book portrays an Italian-American family, you don't need to have interest in this American subculture to enjoy it. Ciresi's detailed description of these lives is so beautifully rendered that the humanity shows through the smallest gesture. This book is ultimately about family and its bonds, both liberating and restrictive. And about the dreams we have for ourselves.

One of the early reviewers of this book complained bitterly that his rosy overview of the Italian way of life had been shattered.Well,mine has been too! I'd always envied the way Italian families seem to be so close and totally bonded,and even recently in New York,a large family group at an Italian restuarant for lunch,brought out the old pangs of jealousy again. Having got that off my chest,I would wholeheartedly recommend "Sometimes I Dream in Italian" as a quick,funny read and a bit of an eyeopener into "real" Italian life at home. Sisters Angel and Lina are growing up in a poor household where their mother is obsessed with cleaning and keeping up appearances and their father wants no more from life than a nap after work with his shoes off.The girls compensate for their drab lives by fantasising about growing up to be rich and famous "Blonde" movie stars.Mama continually embarrasses them in public with her Old Country ways and mean attitude with money,so the girls create their own fantasy world where families are perfect.

This is a quirky book as two sisters ~~ Lina and Angel ~~ grow up together in an Italian family in New Haven. They are the American-Italians whose parents came over from Italy in the early 1900s. It is a dark look into how customs shaped their lives and dreams and desires.

Raised by two Italians, the girls are ashamed of their mother who dresses in drab clothes and their father, who never really say anything to them ~~ just sleeps a lot. The girls dream of the day when they come become "donne" instead of "ragazze" ~~ only to discover the memories of home still keep them close.

This is a delightful read of two sisters who have never lost their bonds for one another. It is a book about two women struggling to be what they consider is "American" only to discover pride in their heritage.

It is a must-read for every woman who at one time longs to be free of their past and heritage, only to discover it's what shapes her to be the woman she is. It is also a quick read ~~ pure escapism for a couple of hours. Though not very deep as some of the books I like to read, it is still good enough for me to while away an afternoon on the hammock.

. . . but if you are, all the better. Fortunately, my own Italian-American family has always been the huggy, kissy kind and not the dark one portrayed by Rita Ciresi. Nevertheless, I know these people, their idiosyncrasies, the fact that Mama always knows best, the fact that Papa puts the roof over your head and doesn't need to do anything else. Readers will laugh out loud at the blatant humor of a home where furniture kept under plastic wraps is the height of elegance, where a Rey Corono cigar band ring from your father is life's most precious treasure, and where no one else can embarrass you on a trip like good ole Mama Mia. Whether recalling the desire to "americanize" your name or listening to the music of "Celeste Aida" while doing housework, this book is a nostalgic look back at not only what it's like to grow up in an Italian-American home, but in any ethnic home. Ciresi peppers the writing with lots of Italian words and phrases (how many times these same words came tumbling from my own grandparents' lips) and portrays the characters with a poignancy that puts the reader immediately into the story and into the lives of Angel and Lina. These two sisters want more than anything else to escape their heritage, but find as adults that it is the memories of it that bind them forever.

Heartwarming, heart-wrenching, and heartfelt---this book is a trip down memory lane for many, a chance to find out what it's like to grow up Italian for those not lucky enough to be able to do it in their real life.

This book isn't really about an Italian-American girl rejecting her ethnic family for a more standard, Anglo-Saxon life. This book could have been about a girl of any ethnicity. It's about a girl rejecting family in her passage to womanhood.
Ask any girl, Italian-American or not, if they were ever embarrassed by her mother in the grocery store. As I was reading the first chapter, I never imagined that the girl's mother was really as embarrassing or odd as she portrayed her to be. We are seeing the mother through her daughter's eyes. The craziness, the quaintness, the ethnicity is magnified by the eyes of an awkward adolescent.
Ignore the reviewers who want this book to be the definitive picture of the life of an Italian American family. That's not what this is about. To expect that is unfair to this book.
If the author lived this life, then this is her honest expression about it. We don't have to know the history of the parents or their Italian heritage to understand this book. We have to know how it feels to move from being a member of a family to being an individual adult person.

I had to laugh at one of the reviewers who was disturbed that his stereotype of the happy, singing, close-knit Italian-American family had been shattered. He's got to get over it. Rita Ciresi tells it like it is. Growing up with a bunch of semi-illiterates from the Old World is not wonderful. It can seriously screw you up for the rest of your life. When Ciresi talked about being unable to buy a Mother's Day card for her stroke-felled mother, I totally empathized. I was never able to buy a sappy Mother's Day card for my Sicilian mother, either. She was a mean, nasty woman, and physically abusive to my younger sister. So, her life wasn't great, but whose fault was that? She took her anger out on others, just as Angel and Lina's mother does in these bittersweet tales of growing up. Yeah, Hallmark and American Greetings don't make the kind of cards that go with the sentiments my mother brought out in me. These stories are not pretty, but they are fine, beautifully written and well constructed. The life of a poor, first-generation Italian-American is honestly chronicled and well told. Brava for Ciresi! It's not easy to write about these things. I write, too, but my fiction is far, far removed from my real life. Ciresi has more guts than I have. Her stories have the taste and sting of bitter, lived truth. And they're good stories, too, though not at all happy ones.

This book was beautifully written, although sometimes a bit confusing. You really felt for the characters. My biggest problem with the book was that I read the back cover and expected something light-hearted and happy to read when I was sad. After reading the book I felt even worse. It was really depressing and made me feel somewhat hopeless. The book definately made you understand how the character felt. Now I'm going to have to read two fluffy books to feel better! Maybe I'll reread the Shopaholic series!

I bought this book in an airport and finished it before my plane ride ended. It was an easy, quick read that kept me highly entertained. That is not to say that the book was mere fluff. It is divided into two sections: the narrator's childhood and adulthood. Both sections deal primarily with Angel's parents' impact on her and her sister, Lina. Angel's mother is portrayed as thrifty to the point of miserly, preoccupied with death, and increadibly overbearing toward everyone in her life, especially her two daughters. The story of her mother at the Statue of Liberty and the butcher shop were hilarious. Just as integral to the story, however, was the sadness that permeated the sisters' lives as a result of their inability to have a closer relationship with their mother and father.

Some of the reviewers have commented that the characters in this story are completely unsympathetic and one-dimensional. I disagree. Angel seems like a normal, lonely woman who is simultaneously facing turning thirty, being still single, and her parents' mortality. Her mother, while riddled with unattractive qualities, is largely motivated by a desire to raise successful, productive and strong daughters. True, her methods are sometimes questionable, but I think it's the story's realism that makes it humorous. I think everyone can relate to having mixed emotions toward their families. Ciresi's story will make you laugh out loud but also occasionally cringe with recognition.