Bingo Number 4!!!! One more than last year and a whole month left to go! CBR 13 Bingo: Travel – Frankie leaves her Southern California home to find herself in Venice, Italy
This book was a gift from a friend, as it was written by her friend and she wanted to be supportive, and I like books. While there are elements that I genuinely like, biggest being the main character, there are other parts that drove me crazy. A small detail was not knowing the protagonist’s name until the sixth page and never learning her last name. A big one was the two storylines in different time periods that are loosely connected through one character’s comment, late in the book, to explain why there are two stories. Also, I did not care for what felt like a bait and switch of a small third plot line, especially as it felt unnecessary to the story.
Frankie, short for Francisca, is an El Salvadoran immigrant who came to the United States at the age of three and is now a citizen. We meet her on the verge of graduation from the UCLA theatre program in 2018, where she is struggling with the realization of how her Latinx heritage affects her ability to get roles, and seriously annoyed when casting directors keep asking her to use a Spanish accent, which she doesn’t have. Frankie is vocal about the importance of casting people correctly. When a friend suggests she takes a role, “that is perfect for you!” but the character is a Black woman, Frankie pushes back saying there are so few parts for BIPOC people that she wouldn’t want to take the role from a Black performer. She further explains that color blind casting can be just as bad as whitewashed casting when a character’s racial identity isn’t considered in the casting process. There are many moments like this that make me want to stand up and applaud Frankie. She is a staunch feminist, environmentalist, and has much to say about the political situation in the United States of 2018 and 2019 that endears her to me. Uncertain of what she wants to do after graduation, Frankie decides to take advantage of the Italian she has been learning and do a semester abroad.
During her time in Venice, Frankie begins processing the trauma of her childhood and recognizing how that ties into her depression. She gains insight into how her parents were raised in El Salvador and how that affected their relationship with her and her negative self image. Frankie begins to understand the pressures that were put upon her due to being a child of immigrants.
But perhaps the most important thing she learns is the validity in her belief that the arts are important. That her voice can be used through writing to share ideas and help people understand one another better. And the hope that through understanding one another people will find more acceptance.
All of that was pretty great! However, that’s only part of the book because we also get Francesca’s story, who lives in the Venice of 1550. There are parallels between Frankie and Francesca, particularly in their feminist and artistic views, but I kept waiting to find out how Francesca’s story in the past ties into Frankie’s story in the future. A good chunk of the way through High Water it is finally revealed that Frankie believes that she lived in Italy in a past life. That previous life explains the ease of learning Italian and how comfortably she slipped into her Venetian life after leaving California. So Frankie being reincarnated Francesca is why we have the double story but nothing ever comes it. There’s no greater narrative that weaves the two timelines together.
Frankie is a great character, there doesn’t need to be a deeper purpose for why she is attracted to Italy and Venice in particular. It doesn’t seem to matter to her story and it felt unneeded. It seems like a reason was created to be able to tell a different Venetian story at the same time. Not having the second storyline would have given Frankie’s more time to breathe and develop. Many of her realizations and self discoveries happen in about three conversations.
I did not like a minor plot because it teased a romantic interest near the beginning of the book which seemed like a great idea. Young woman abroad in Italy meets charming Venetian man. Instead of a romantic storyline it’s a twist and surprise! Spoilers: There was no handsome man at all, it was a cat, and the implication is it is the reincarnation of someone close to Francesca. So the two spirits are reunited as a human and cat? I suppose it helps support why we get Francesca’s story but these chapters ended up feeling extraneous to Frankie’s story after the reveal.
High Water is an okay book. I think Frankie could have been better served if she had a standalone storyline. I would have liked to see Francesca’s story fleshed out into her own book. The bones of a great story is there: forbidden romance in 16th Century Venice, he an orphan raised on the glass isle of Murano and she the orphaned daughter of a nobleman being raised by her courtesan Aunt. If the two narratives were tied more closely together, I might have enjoyed it more, but as it was it felt like they should be two separate books.