Rating: 
Summary: The ending ruins the story
Review: I received a copy of "Lucia Lucia" for Christmas and found it to be an enjoyable read. It's a story of a woman's strength to be who she feels she should be and not who she's expected to be. As other here have said, I wasn't thrilled with the ending. It felt a little disloyal to a woman who was so ahead of her time, so determined to live her own life.
I realized after reading this from cover to cover, what was really expected of me as a daughter-in-law in an Italian family. I too shunned the old Italian ways and now see why I was never really accepted.
"Lucia Lucia" hit close to home for me but I believe it is limited by cultural interest.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting
Review: I enjoyed this book, but found the author's writing style somewhat simplistic. But as a character, Lucia is a delight and is to be applauded for standing up for what she believes in and "doing the right thing" where and when it counts. She is a woman who is well ahead of her time (in the early 50s) and I enjoyed the descriptions of living on Commerce Street in Greenwich Village and amid a male dominated Italian family. She is an engaging character, but again, the author's writing style is pretty basic. This is a great beach read.
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Summary: Fun & easy read
Review: If you are looking for something light and heartfelt, Lucia, Lucia will fill the bill. Trigiani sets up a delightful story about the only daughter in an Italian immigrant family. Fashion lovers will enjoy reading about her career and romantics will be satisfied with the ending. Interesting characters and a couple of unexpected plot twists keep the story moving.
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Summary: Hats off to Strength!
Review: Strength you ask? Yes! Lucia Lucia is a compelling book depicting the strengths of self, independence, womanhood, family, friendship, loyalties, love and honor, betrayal and sorrow.
Though another reader found this book to be predictable, I did not! I kept hoping for a fairy tail ending ... not that the book did not have a fairy tail ending ... just one that is diferent than what one would classify as a fairy tail.
I listened to it as an audio, and was enchanted from the very beginning ... and lo and behold, the enchantment lasted the entire book!
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Summary: Wow, I love finding a Good Writer, Bring on her other books!
Review: I was totally enchanted. For those reviewers below who didn't enjoy it, perhaps they are too young to appreciate the nostalgia and sentiment in reading the life story of a seventysome year old woman. Also, for those of us who lived in the 50's, this was a charming return. (Most of the story centers around the 50's.) Also, I did not find the ending weak at all, as someone suggested. It had me in tears. I plan to read all of Ms Trigiani books written in the past and the future.
Rating:
Summary: A predictable and undemandingly light book
Review: Generally, I'm more tolerant of audiobooks than the books I read. I usually finish audiobooks whereas unsatisfying books will remain unread on my nightstand. I listened to this book as an unabridged audiobook.
Trigiani paints some nice images - Little Italy in the 1950s - Lucia's career at B.Altman's. But I found the weak plot & poor characterizations sometimes made this a tedious experience. Most of the storyline was so predictible that the only surprise was guessing when the anticipated twist or event would occur. Also, few characters were well defined, Lucia has four brothers but (with the exception of Roberto the bull) they speak with one voice.
Other reviewers have mentioned that they admired Lucia but I see her as a passive victim. Yes, you could say that she had some independence in her life - more than most women did of her generation. But, at the end of the book, where is she? She is betrayed by the man she loves & lives most of her life in a kind of limbo - only confronting him 50 years after the fact. She sacrifices the career she loves for her ill mother, taking care of her for 20 years only to be left out of any inheritance. She's 78 & living in a smaller version of the room she inhabited as a girl. She no longer has a place to sew. The house she loved as a girl is in disrepair & the family business has been sold. And the book ends on a positive note with a date with the man she rejected 50 years ago.
Rating:
Summary: This would make a Great made for TV movie!
Review: Lucia is an italian girl who is living in her house with her parents ( who are from Italy) and her brothers. They own a grocery store not far from their house where the family works.
Lucia is a seamstress that works for B. Altman & Co. when that store was exclusive and before "ready to wear" items were made. She worked in the department that custom made clothes for women with alot of money. She also helped design bridal gowns.
She is engaged to be married to an Italian boy who owns the town bakery. But she wants to call off the engagement because she doesn't want to be a housewife she still wants to keep her job in Altman's. Her parents are upset. Her oldest brother gets a girl pregnant and they marry in the back of the church, which causes alot of shame on the family. It isn't until the baby is born that both families of the newlyweds reunite and make "peace" with each other. The baby dies, and tragedy stikes
again the the household.
Lucia finds a georgous man who she falls in love with and leaves her at the altar. It takes her a while get back on with her life and there are other tragedies in the family to keep her mind off the wedding "that wasn't". As time passes she finds outs that the man she was in love with was a con man and he gambled all of her money away instead of buying their home, and he was placed in jail.
Lucia goes to visit him, many many years later and hear his confession to her as to why he left her on the altar. He was a coward and wanted things he couldn't have.
In the end, this book was entertaining and a very easy enjoyable read, and I recommend it to anyone.
Rating: 
Summary: No ear for dialogue; something's missing here
Review: Everyone who checks this book out of the library where I work enjoys it very much, so read my review with a grain of salt. I did enjoy reading the book on a long plane trip; it passed the time in a pleasant way. If I'd been home and had other things to do, other books to read, I may not have finished it. I love a book where the dialogue is realistic and the actions characters take seem fitting and believable. There is something amateurish about the way this book is written. Somehow it just doesn't ring true to my ear. Also, I wonder about how the book was set up: you know right from the very start that "Aunt Lu" never gets married. That ruins the suspense that might have built later in the story. Not only did I think the beginning nearly ruined the story, but it also seemed contrived. I did enjoy learning about that time period and the pressure the modern world puts on the traditions of family and culture. I also very much enjoyed learning about Lucia's job; her love of her work and passion for fashion, cloth, style was quite convincing.
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