Ode To Adriana Trigiani

Adriana Trigiani - She's Cute Too

Adriana Trigiani. I love this woman more than I reasonably should. I would read a grocery list if she wrote it. Fortunately she writes much better things, like novels.

I first encountered her books while in the drugstore, passing by the paperback display. I needed something to read and Big Stone Gap caught my eye. It sounded nice, so I brought it home. And I fell in love, both with characters in the book and with Adriana Trigiani herself. After gobbling up her first novel, I dove into the other Big Stone Gap novels, then Queen of the Big Time and Lucia, Lucia and finally the Valentine series.

I don’t mind telling you that I cannot get enough.

Why? Because she gets me. Or rather I get her. Or something like that. I can see myself in each of her characters and experience the events in her books as if they were happening to me. Maybe it’s our shared Italian heritage. Maybe it’s our womanhood. Maybe she’s just very good at tapping into what it means to be a woman trying to make her way in the world.

This is more than chick lit. I know this because my mother, who only reads books by Michael Connelly, PJ Parrish and John Sandford (full of murder and mayhem all), loves Adriana’s books. And she’s read them all; I know because she borrowed them from me. I’ve recommended these books to several people who cannot stop gushing about them. I lost my copy of Lucia, Lucia when I lent it to someone and it never came home.

I love the heroines in her stories. They are real, flawed and honest. They fall in love with all kinds of men, wonderful and not-so-wonderful. But they do not live and die by their love lives, even when love is at the core of the story. They are well-rounded, women of substance.

There is also much to learn from her books – about Big Stone Gap, Virginia (a real place where Trigiani grew up), about New York City, about Italy and being Italian and about industries like fashion design and shoe making. I love when I can learn something new while being entertained. It’s my favorite state of being.

I gush, I know. but I think Adriana is worth it. I hope you will too.

P.S. – I left out a book. It’s called Rococo. I didn’t like it. It has a male central character. I don’t remember why I didn’t like it, so I may go back and give it another try. That’s how much I love Adriana Trigiani. Devotion, people. Devotion.

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