Book Review of The Stolen Child by Ann Hood

Name of Book: the STOLEN child

Author: Ann Hood 

ISBN: 978-0-393-60980-6

Publisher: W.W. Norton 

Type of book: Italy, USA, France, art, decisions, living life, Museum of Tears, storyteller role, secrets, lost children, 1917-1974

Year it was published: 2024 

Summary:

An unlikely duo ventures through France and Italy to solve the mystery of a child’s fate in this moving, page-turning novel from “a gifted storyteller” ( People ). For decades, Nick Burns has been haunted by a decision he made as a young soldier in World War I, when a French artist he’d befriended thrust both her paintings and her baby into his hands―and disappeared. In 1974, with only months left to live, Nick enlists Jenny, a college dropout desperate for adventure, to help him unravel the mystery. The journey leads them from Paris galleries and provincial towns to a surprising the Museum of Tears, the life’s work of a lonely Italian craftsman. Determined to find the baby and the artist, hopeless romantic Jenny and curmudgeonly Nick must reckon with regret, betrayal, and the lives they’ve left behind. With characteristic warmth and verve, Ann Hood captures a world of possibility and romance through the eyes of a young woman learning to claim her place in it. The Stolen Child is an engaging, timeless novel of secrets, love lost and found, and the nature of forgiveness.

Characters:

The main characters are Enzo, Nick, and Jenny. Nick is the well connected soldier who has desires in becoming an artist and who is asked to make a life or death choice when a local woman asks him for Help. Later on in the book Nivk is determined, resourceful and desires to right wrongs. Enzo is an introvert who is a good listener and  someone who lets life pass him by with barely living it. He decides to create Museum of Tears to encompass his collection of tears and the stories. Jenny is a college dropout student who is determined to escape her position and who DESIRES to regain her former life. There are secondary characters in the form of Jenny's love interests and her friends and family  as well as Enzos family and Nicks wife, but they aren't as prominent as those three characters. 

Theme:

What is the right choice? 

Plot:

THE story is in third person narrative from Jenny's, Nicks and Enzos points of view, and for those who miss the dual timeline story, then THE LOST CHILD is a story to fill the hole in. So the timeline works in quite an interesting way: at first the story begins with Enzo, a young boy during WWII who begins collecting tears from people during momentous events and then comes back to WWI when Nick meets a French woman and  is forced to make a life or death decision that will literally haunt him for the rest of his life. Then the story moves to 1974 where we meet a waitress, Jenny who is also a former college student and  who often wants a life she has lost during unforeseen circumstances. The novel is definitely a work of passion and love because the descriptions and scenery literally glow. 

Author Information:
( From goodreads) 

Ann Hood is the editor of Knitting Yarns: Writers on Knitting and the bestselling author of The Book That Matters Most, The Knitting Circle, The Red Thread, Comfort, and An Italian Wife, among other works. She is the recipient of two Pushcart Prizes, a Best American Spiritual Writing Award, a Best American Food Writing Award, a Best American Travel Writing Award, and the Paul Bowles Prize for Short Fiction. She lives in Providence, Rhode Island.

Opinion:

This was truly a beautiful treasure and description of art and life during 20th century Italy. A long time ago, I had a chance of reading Carol Crams novel, THE TOWERS OF TUSCANY, and the novel had the same vibrant and beautiful energy that THE LOST CHILD possesses in spades and more. Whenever I think of those two novels, I often want to raise my glass and make a toast to life.  I also would describe them as emotional filled with a variety of scenes that are meant to tug at heartstrings without overdoing it. 

This was given for review 

4 out of 5
(0: Stay away unless a masochist 1: Good for insomnia 2: Horrible but readable; 3: Readable and quickly forgettable, 4: Good, enjoyable 5: Buy it, keep it and never let it go.)