Beautiful Ruins

By Jess Walter

The style of this book is one of my favorites. The author presents seemingly disconnected characters and storylines and gradually weaves them all together. In addition he is very clever with his methods of telling the story using narrative, an excerpt from a play, portions of a book being written by one of the characters…very clever. For an author to convincingly write the voices of a 1960’s female film star to a poor Italian man over the course of many decades to a modern day twenty-something working in Hollywood shows real talent. The setting includes gorgeous Cinque Terre, LA and the Pacific Northwest. The film star arrives in Cinque Terre in a mysterious fashion and Pasquale Tursi, the owner of the local hotel, of course falls madly in love. It is much more than a straight love story though. It delves into life choices, life’s twists and turns, expectations both realized and unrealized. It is just a really enjoyable, pleasant read.

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