The conversational tone is almost rambling - not for me.

The tone of this book strikes me as extremely conversational, which made sense once I re-read this portion of the description: "Told in Elsa’s words and written by her grandson." It's a little too winding, almost rambling, for my taste; it takes the entirety of the quite lengthy excerpt to say "we decided to buy the pensione." If you like storyteller-style books, you'll probably enjoy it better than I did.