Genre: Fiction
This story spans of the life of Nella Castelluca beginning in the early 20th century. Nella is a fifteen year old girl who dreams of becoming a school teacher. Her dreams are shattered after her father has a serious accident and is unable to support the family. The Castelluca sisters are all forced to get jobs and work so their family can live and maintain their farm.
Nella makes a name for herself working a local factory. At the young age of only 16, she becomes the forewoman at the factory. Nella grows into a mature, strong and very capable woman. She falls head over heels in love with Renato Lanzara, but when he suddenly leaves her, she’s shattered. She never expects to fall in love again, but sometimes the unexpected can turn out to be a beautiful thing.
The Queen of the Big Time takes us through Nella’s life, we see are happiness as well as her sorrows. It’s a very emotional read or at least it was for me. I listened to the audio version of this and actually was crying as I was on my way to work. I had to pull myself together or my co-workers would have thought something really bad was wrong. LOL Any book that can effect me like that is really special. It’s been a long time since I reacted that way to a book.
Each character was so vividly portrayed and I had an excellent feeling of an Italian/ American family lifestyle. I really can’t say enough good things about this book. Actually, I better add it to my Great Book Alert for 2009 since I finished it in 2009. Trigiani is definitely an author I will be looking to read again.
Sounds good, and I did enjoy her last book :)
ReplyDeleteI have a couple of the author's other books in my TBR collection to try. The Stone Gap books, I think. I am glad you enjoyed this one, Yvonne!
ReplyDeleteI am going to check this book out. I liked Very Valentine.
ReplyDeleteI'm listening to one of the Stone Gap books on audio. I just bought Very Valentine, which looks great.
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