Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I thought the reviews for this book sounded great, so I was pretty surprised that it wasn't very good. I'm hardly a literary snob, but the writing is so poor, I'm a little surprised it found a willing publisher. I finished it in a single sitting, primarily because I hate to not finish a book, and I just wanted to be done. The good: the story was ok. Using war as a backdrop kept it from being completely boring, but I was hardly fascinated. The author does insert a couple of amusing moments, and I actually laughed once at a moment of sassiness that added uncharacteristic warmth to the otherwise bland story. This book gives me hope that even I could succeed as a author. The bad: I started to worry when the prologue gave away the ending. I winced when I read about how "we literally grew up around this table" in one of the early chapters. But I thought surely 160+ readers wouldn't lead me into a book that was going to be lousy, right? Surely, it had to get better. I mean, it didn't have to be great- just good. But it wasn't good. The quality of writing is nice for a high school essay, but was surprisingly poor for a published work of historical fiction. The tone was out of sync with the setting, and the author fails to create convincing characters. Perhaps my biggest complaint is that the author skips right over the moments that would potentially allow the reader to become emotionally invested in the story (at long last). For example, we know that the protagonist and a fellow go for a walk and have a conversation that leads her to fall in love with him, but we are excluded from the dialogue, merely informed that it has taken place. The book would have benefitted greatly by lengthening it by roughly 30-50% to develop the story more and let readers feel the protagonist's fear, fall in love with her, worry with her. I finished the book knowing nearly nothing about her love interest, Dominic. There was also so much repetition that some of my criticism really is directed at the editor - I don't need to be told more than once that Roselli is an even smaller town that Casalvieri, and I certainly don't need to be reminded 5 times (!) about a vow to kill 10 Italians in retribution for any German deaths. Most importantly, though, at no point in the story, did I feel particularly moved or invested. This was a disappointing read that has led me to reconsider whether ratings on Amazon books are even remotely reliable.