This story is about soul mates and soul searching and mothers and daughters. It’s about finding your center when the thing (or person) that houses your identity is no longer present—only alive in history and memory and story.

This story opens with the untangling of grief: a mother dies, a daughter leaves, the Amalfi Coast awaits. Katy, a 30-year-old copywriter, leaves her L.A. life behind, including her husband, days after she loses her mom, her anchor and talisman. Lost and lamenting, she hopes to find answers and solace in Positano, the place her mother visited and fell in love with before she was a mother. The magical-realism comes into play when Katy’s mother, Carol, shows up on this Italian trip—posthumously as the 30-year-old version of herself—befriending her future daughter, which seems to work because of the timelessness of the place: “The magic of Italy seems to be in its ability to connect to some time out of time, some era that is unmarked by modernity” (142).

Through the magic of the setting and myths and altered-time, Katy searches for who she is without her mother, who she wants to be with, and what she wants to do with her life—all while learning about who her mother was before she was her mother. What better place to search for your soul than on the cliffs of Italy, walking up the stairway of The Path of the Gods?

I really enjoyed the honesty of Katy’s journey: the ugliness of grief, the sometimes false perception we have of parents, the hard choices we have to make that don’t define us but help us find our way back home. I also enjoyed, like I did with In Five Years, wondering how the magic and the reality would be reconciled in the end (which didn’t disappoint).
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The setting makes the book. The story itself is disappointing. The main character, Katy, is selfish and immature. She is grieving the loss of her mother- her great love- her sibling and best friend. Her mother was also an expert on everything and had a clear opinion on "the right way to do things", Katy relied on her to make any decision..clothes, "roads to take", having a family, and therefore losing her is devastating because Katy is completely unprepared to live or function without her.
(“When you’re just a reflection, what happens when the image vanishes?” p. 201)
The point is finding herself in her mother's youth. Katy should learn to become more herself. Great lesson through an annoying, name-dropping, and whining character!
What Katy does learn is that her mother was not the perfect person Katy imagined her to be. She does learn to be "present"... and appreciate her life as is now.
Although I rated it 3 out of 5 stars, members of our book club gave it either ranged between 3 and 4 stars. We had a lively discussion about parenting, "adulting", and change. Several members chose the same quote to discuss:
“What got you here won’t get you there… the same set of circumstances, beliefs, actions that got you to a moment won't get you to what comes next. ..if you want a different outcome, you have to behave differently.” p. 116
I also found myself referring to this quote in a conversation with my own family! ( )

After losing her mother to cancer, Katy decides to take the trip to Italy that the two of them were planning to take together. There, she will encounter a mysterious woman who reminds her of her mother and a man who will make her question her life choices.

To enjoy this novel, you need to let go of a part of your logic and reasoning. Similar to [b:In Five Years|50093704|In Five Years|Rebecca Serle|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1586399012l/50093704._SY75_.jpg|71431652], this book has a supernatural twist that is the key to the story. It wasn't incorporated perfectly, but I didn't mind. I liked the other big twist that happened in that part of the plot and didn't see it coming.

When Katy saw the photo of herself in her mom's room, I was totally shocked I dropped my Kindle. It was such a good twist! However, Katy's behaviour afterwards was silly and unbelievable.

The weakest part for me was the whole Adam subplot, which wasn't very satisfying and felt a little redundant/unfinished to me.

This book is mostly about the narratives we create about people we love and the fact that we never really know the whole truth. The truth may, after all, not even be more important than love. I didn't expect this novel to go in that direction and for that, I give this 4 stars. I enjoyed being mentally transported to the Amalfi coast, that is the biggest value of this book.

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Bizarre. The relationship that Katy has with her mother is not healthy at all. The plot just gets weirder the farther into the book I got. The whole trip to Italy becomes unbelievable in the end. ( )

Can't finish it, the heroine is too annoying, selfish, and cruel (to her husband) without a good reason.