“Sometimes moving forward is as simple as admitting what you already know.”
In Love & Olives, Olive finally hears from her father who left when she was only 8 years old. They had always connected over the search for the lost city of Atlantis. He wants to fly her to Greece to where he thinks he has finally found the city. However, her heart doesn’t want to reconnect with the man she felt abandoned by early in her life.
I have read Welch’s two other books – Love & Gelato and Love & Luck. They were both fun, easy reads targeted to young adults. Welch is the daughter of my favorite author, Richard Paul Evans. I waited several weeks for Love & Olives to be available from my local library to check out as an ebook.
Olive is greeted at the airport not by her father, but by his girlfriend’s son, Theo. Theo is her age and there is an attraction right away. However, Olive has a boyfriend at home, although she knows that relationship is not going well. Dax is graduating and planning to go to college in California. She has another year in high school and then wants to go to the Rhode Island School of Design. As she works with her dad and Theo on a documentary about Atlantis, Olive finds she has to face head-on both the past and future with them and Dax.
Love & Olives is a sweet story about how children usually don’t know as much about their parents as they think they do. Olive realizes she put her memories of her father into categories to fit the story she thought was true about him leaving, but when she opens to the true story, she finds compassion for him. Welch does a good job weaving together a story about a father and daughter relationship, Atlantis and mental health issues.
What is something you thought about your parents as a child that changed when you got older? Share in the comments!