Finding Marco: 10/05/10

Since I am in no financial position to travel right now, I do my traveling through books. I have book club friends who go to Italy on a regular basis so we tend to swap a lot of Italian themed books. Combine those to aspects of my life with description and gorgeous cover of Finding Marco by Kenneth C. Cancellara and the book seemed like a perfect read to snuggle up with.

Mark Gentile is a Canadian corporate lawyer on a career fast track. The first half of the book is full of his Marty Stu goodness. He's smart. He's dedicated. He's happily married. He's good at his job.

It's the most boring first half of a book I've read in a long time. Mark for all his perfection is a dull protagonist. There's no emotion, no conflict, no motivation to the plot.

Then just about the halfway point Mark suddenly remembers, announces for the sake of the blurb on the back of the book that he's Italian. He's actually named Marco and he moved to Canada as a young child. Now he suddenly wants to go home.

I'd find this change in events more plausible if it had happened sooner in the book and if his early childhood had been mentioned at the start of the book when he's a child. Every other nauseatingly dull piece of his childhood is there. So why isn't the relevant part included?

I didn't bother with the trip to Italy half of the book.

I received the book for review.

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