Solid read. Seamlessly shifts between the history of the time period & the fiction. Though the author continually used modern phrases when crafting dialogue or descriptions. I wished she hadn't Definitely a 'girl' book as the only action in the book revolves around Elisabetta 's 'love' life. Personally, I was invested in her character immediately. Chapter after chapter I wanted to watch events unfold for her. The Mona Lisa is an enigmatic painting that elicits more questions than answers. Dona Jo Napoli gives a possible narrative about the mysterious woman painted by da Vinci. In some ways, it doesn’t even matter who the real woman was. This book is such a good look at the life of a young noblewomen in 16th-century Florence, we at least get a taste for what any young woman growing up in that time and place might have experienced. Elisabetta (called “Monna Lisa” by one of the Medicis) yearns for more than her station can give her, not money, but freedom to do as she wishes. The novel begins when she is a dreamy 13 and ends with her as a 24-year-old practical mother, an unusual arc in a novel for young readers.As always, this author threads historical facts into a compelling story that may cause readers to want to know more about that time, Florence, da Vinci, or possible Mona Lisas.
Do You like book Das Geheimnisvolle Lächeln (2009)?
If you love romance this is the book for you. It will make you smile and cry.
—Jonjon
This is my favorite book by this author so far. She is a local YA writer.
—peggy
very good historical fiction w/ a bit of biography in it(:
—Cassie
