The novel, Love and Olives by Jenna Evans Welch, is mainly about a 17-year-old girl named Olive, who shared a very special relationship with her father. Olive's family lived in a small apartment in America. Olive and her father would share their love of being explorers and had been following the fantasy of a myth to find the lost city of Atlantis. When Olive’s father left her with no context at the age of 8, he left to go back to the island of Santorini, an island in Greece which is where he believes Atlantis is located. After Olive's father left, she kept everything he had left behind trying to figure out why he left. Olive's father would send her postcards every so often, asking her how she was and what she was up to but Olive never dared to open them. On one random summer day, the summer before Olive was a junior in high school, she received a postcard from her father that she was forced to read. In the postcard was an invitation to fly to the Greek island of Santorini and help her father find the lost city. Olive's mother demanded that she go, and Olive was next flown out to Greece, missing her boyfriend's graduation party and all the fun summer festivities. Olive's mother gave Olive a list of rules and instructions for if anything happens. On Olive's flight to Santorini, she meets a guy who is also flying to Santorini to go see his boyfriend as they are in a long-distance relationship. Olive somehow starts talking about her father and all the complications, allowing her to regret her decision to come to see her father who left her for no reason and have not seen each other for 9 years. When Olive arrives in Santorini she expects her father to be waiting for her, but he is nowhere to be seen. After an hour goes by, a young kid, around the same age as Olive named Theo calls her over and tells her that she is going to go meet her father now. After a long moment of confusion and storytelling, the two teens head off on a broken-down and scratched motorcycle to where her father is. Theo was sent by Olive’s father (Nico) to pick her up at the airport. Once they get to the location (which is a very beautiful, old, and popular bookstore) Olive's father is there with a surprise birthday party to celebrate all the special days he has missed in her life. He had timed it perfectly with the magical sunset and gifted her some very special and expensive oil pastels from France. Olive had been an artist for years, and she had no idea that her father knew about her love of paint. After a very special night, the next day the three of them got to work. They went over what they knew and Olive found out that her father was creating a documentary of their exploration that would be produced by National Geographic and they would include a whole episode of their expedition in their segment about explorers. Olive doubts that the whole city of Atlantis is true but goes along with it. As the three of them head through the crowded city, she realizes that almost everybody in the city knows her name, her father must have been sharing and talking a lot about her all these years that he has been non-existent. They set off on small bought to go find the lost city with nothing but a duct-taped, old boat and filming supplies.
I loved reading this book as it was a quick and easy read. I loved the storyline and how the author made me feel connected to the characters but also provided the feeling that you were there on the Greek island. This book gave me pleasure when reading and I looked forward to how the author was going to complete the storyline.
The author used a topic about a mystical underwater lost city and turned it into a story about a basic 17-year-old girl and her father solving their issues and trying to find this city. I found that the author made the book relatable and easy to follow. I would definitely recommend this book along with the others in this series. I hope any other readers will enjoy this book as much as I did!
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