Review of Love and Loathing in the Islands

[Elizabeth Humberstone]

[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Love and Loathing in the Islands" by Adriana Bardolino.]

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4 out of 5 stars

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Love and Loathing in the Islands: Searching for Gauguin, written by Adriana Bardolino, is a story of finding a true home.

On a beautiful spring day in 1975, Adriana knocked on a door in Haiku, a small community on Maui, a small island in Hawaii. During a month-long holiday, Adriana falls in love with Hawaii. She returns home with Hank, a man she met in Maui. Even though she is back home, she yearns for the island and plans to move there permanently. Unfortunately, her mother has a major medical incident, and Adriana stays with her parents to help them recover. Hank returns to Maui without her, and Adriana starts questioning if she will ever return.

Bardolino has an amazingly poetic writing style that will paint pictures in your mind as you read. There are some instances in the book where the characters use different languages. Bardolino includes phonetic pronunciations for the reader. I found this very helpful and considerate. Throughout the book, there are incredible images, photos, paintings, and drawings. These are beautiful works of art that show the reader the true beauty of Hawaii, though I wish they were in colour.

There are a lot of people named in this book, and I found it hard to remember all the names. Some people are just mentioned once and then completely forgotten, which I found disappointing; it also made me question if they needed to be mentioned in the first place.

I rate Adriana Bardolino's book, Love and Loathing in the Islands: Searching for Gauguin, four out of five stars. I have deducted one star because of the above reason and because I found some errors while reading; they were distracting, though they did not greatly detract from the reading experience.

I recommend this book for adults, artists, people living in the United States, and anyone looking for a fresh start.
Please be aware this book contains profanity, sexual content, drug use, suicide and murder references, and outdated ableist and racist terms.

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Love and Loathing in the Islands
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[George Bastem]

The poetic writing and vivid imagery sound captivating, especially with the added touch of artwork. It’s a shame the numerous names made it a bit confusing, but the journey of finding home still seems compelling.