I learned so much while reading this book. I had never been taught about Mussolini and Italy’s position during WWII. The stories about living during Mussolini’s dictatorship were intriguing and I especially appreciated the details about trying to leave Italy during the war. My complaints would be that sometimes the story rambled and I received too much information and other times I felt like there wasn’t enough information. For example, I would have loved more stories about the day to day operation of the hotel. I believe Elsa was a very positive person and this story could have been much more grim but she chose to see the best in everyone and every situation. This book reiterated to me that we must learn from history so we don’t repeat mistakes.