The Vietri Project

A Novel

By: Nicola DeRobertis-Theye

Narrated by: Sophie Amoss

A Lithub, Good Reads, Bustle, and The Millions Most Anticipated Book of 2021

""The Vietri Project is a riveting, shifting quest, an evocative trip to Rome, and a beautiful portrayal of the ways you need to return to the past in order to move forward. A great delight from start to finish.”--Lily King, New York Times bestselling author of Writers and Lovers

A search for a mysterious customer in Rome leads a young bookseller to confront the complicated history of her family, and that of Italy itself, in this achingly intimate debut with echoes of Lily King and Elif Batuman.

Working at a bookstore in Berkeley in the years after college, Gabriele becomes intrigued by the orders of signor Vietri, a customer from Rome whose numerous purchases grow increasingly mystical and esoteric. Restless and uncertain of her future, Gabriele quits her job and, landing in Rome, decides to look up Vietri. Unable to locate him, she begins a quest to unearth the well-concealed facts of his life.

Following a trail of obituaries and military records, a memoir of life in a village forgotten by modernity, and the court records of a communist murder trial, Gabriele meets an eclectic assortment of the city’s inhabitants, from the widow of an Italian prisoner of war to members of a generation set adrift by the financial crisis. Each encounter draws her unexpectedly closer to her own painful past and complicated family history—an Italian mother diagnosed with schizophrenia and institutionalized during her childhood, and an extended family in Rome still recovering from the losses and betrayals in their past. Through these voices and histories, Gabriele will discover what it means to be a person in the world; a member of a family and a citizen of a country—and how reconciling these stories may be the key to understanding her own.

No need to finish

Dawdling, self absorbed, plotless.
Started out with an intriguing premise, but left it behind. Protagonist was weak and boring.

Very Repetitive

I struggled to get through this book. The historical parts were interesting, but it seemed as though the author was being paid by the word. Much of the narrative added little or nothing to the "story". The various sexual encounters appeared to be included simply to meet some assumed need for sex. I love sex as much as the next person, but in this story those encounters were almost boring.
I only forced myself to finish the book because it is the subject for my book club.

Misleading Title

I found the main character unlikable and selfish with very little character development. The author blamed this shallowness on the character's mother's mental illness but, as a child of a parent with mental illness, this excuse didn't ring true. Overall the plot just didn't work either. Is it a coming of age? Not really. A mystery? One without a resolution. A love story? Barely. I cannot recommend.

I wanted to love this

I wanted to love this but couldn’t. I found the main character self-absorbed and annoying . I hung with it because it was highly recommended by a friend.
There was some interesting history and
Perspective but ultimately not worth it for me

Very weak and disappointing ending

Intriguing at first. Like sense of Italian family but Vietri was a red herring and too much vague stuff about what might have happened