With the amount of near death experiences Stella Fortuna has faced, she finds her name ironic or a cruel joke.

"The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna" by Juliet Grames is a sweeping, multi-generational family saga that centers on the life of Stella Fortuna. From her life in Calabria, Italy to the emigration to America, we follow Stella, Tina and their family over the course of 100 years.

I desperately wanted to like this book as the blurb had me immediately intrigued. Unfortunately, the telling of this tale through third person made it hard to connect myself with the story. Even when covering some rather dark subject matter, the third party narration created a cold disconnect and aloofness.

“Over the course of her hundred years, the second Stella Fortuna (I will tell you about the first in a little bit) would survive eight near-death experiences – or seven, depending on how you count them. She would be bludgeoned and concussed, she would asphyxiate, she would hemorrhage, and she would be lobotomized. She would be partially submerged in boiling oil, be split from belly to bowel on two unrelated occasions, and on a different day have her life saved only by a typo. Once she would almost accidentally commit suicide. Was it fantastically bad luck that the second Stella encountered such danger or fantastically good luck she survived it?“

I mistakenly assumed a playful tone from the early pages, but the story quickly revealed itself to be a relentlessly dark and heavy experience. This made the subject matter quite hard to stomach considering my expectation was so different to the source.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t a book for me.

The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna by Juliet Grames is a sweeping story about a new family in the rural mountains of Italy who face upheavals as their country goes to war, the father goes off to fight, then goes off to America, and their daughter Stella keeps nearly dying.

I really enjoyed the writing style of this book, and in general the way it encompassed so much of every characters life. Despite it encompassing so much, it was also so detailed. I loved Stella as a main character, and thought she was stubborn and defiant in the best way. The story covers the family moving to America for ‘a better life’ and how that was not always the dream it was intended to be.

I have paired this book with two of my very favourites, The Other Half of Augusta Hope and All My Mothers, both by Joanna Glen, as I feel they are very similar in vibes. They both cover so much of the characters lives and manage to touch on the big and the little in similar ways. So if you liked either of these, I think you’ll like the other

The prose is beautiful but ultimately I didn't feel as invested as I really wanted to - overall, a clever read

Unfortunately I just could not get into this book. It may be one for other readers, but I was unable to finish it.

I am in charge of the senior library and work with a group of Reading Ambassadors from 16-18 to ensure that our boarding school library is modernised and meets the need of both our senior students and staff. It has been great to have the chance to talk about these books with our seniors and discuss what they want and need on their shelves. I was drawn to his book because I thought it would be something different from the usual school library fare and draw the students in with a tempting storyline and lots to discuss.
This book was a really enjoyable read with strong characters and a real sense of time and place. I enjoyed the ways that it maintained a cracking pace that kept me turning its pages and ensured that I had much to discuss with them after finishing. It was not only a lively and enjoyable novel but had lots of contemporary themes for our book group to pick up and spend hours discussing too.
I think it's important to choose books that interest as well as challenge our students and I can see this book being very popular with students and staff alike; this will be an excellent purchase as it has everything that we look for in a great read - a tempting premise, fantastic characters and a plot that keeps you gripped until you close its final page.

I wasn't sure what to expect with this book from the blurb alone, but it was so much better than I was anticipating. It encompasses the life of Stella and her family, as she grows up and experiences many near-death experiences. It is so much bigger than just her life, though, and explores immigrant life in mid-20th century America. It's something I didn't know much about, and was beautifully written.

The book begins:

This is the story of Mariastella Fortuna the Second, called Stella, formerly of Ievoli, a mountain village of Calabria, Italy, and lately of Connecticut, in the United States of America. Her life stretched over more than a century, and during that life she endured much bad luck and hardship. This is the story how she never died.

Over the course of her hundred years, the second Stella Fortuna (I will tell you about the first in a little bit) would survive eight near-death experiences – or seven, depending on how you count them. She would be bludgeoned and concussed, she would asphyxiate, she would haemorrhage, and she would be lobotomised. She would be partially submerged in boiling oil, be split from belly to bowel on two unrelated occasions, and on a different day have her life saved only by a typo. Once she would almost accidentally commit suicide.

OK, so where and how do I begin to review this EPIC family drama? It’s quite a big book! It spans 100 years. It’s set between a tiny remote Italian village in the Mountains and America. It’s a mixture of historical fiction and a contemporary family drama. It’s beautifully written and those who love a sweeping story will adore it.

This is a huge step away from my usual fast paced thrillers and therefore it took me several days to read, which for me is a long time and whilst I found the historical content fascinating and the writing style beautiful, at times the story dragged for me, but I believe that’s my issue and not the book or the author.

'This was the trouble with emigration - it dismantled the patriarchy. Because really, what did Assunta, or any women, need a husband for, when she did every goddamn thing herself.'' I finished The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna last night and overall I loved it, although I found it utterly heartbreaking. What an incredible character, and what a beautiful coming of age tale from @julietgrames. All the way through I so wanted Stella to escape from her overbearing father, and I found myself desperately hoping that her husband would be different to the other men she encountered. (Also 10 kids, bloody hell!). I started this book on the flight to Stockholm last week and it was pretty gruesome from the off (put me off my BA sandwich if I'm honest!). The story is woven around how Stella cheats death a number of times but it is so much more than that. I'd definitely recommend it if you like big family dramas, coming of age stories or sagas. I immediately followed it up by starting Three Women which also packs a punch, I clearly have a thing for strong female voices at the moment!

I enjoyed the deliberate quality of Grames's prose. which made it feel like a story crafted with intent. Unfortunately, the third person perspective didn't draw me in and the very crafted nature of the prose made it feel a little cold and distant. Thus the various forms of abuse and darkness come across as unfeeling where I would've wanted compassion. I can see why this story with its magical realism and reality was written but for me it did not quite make it.

This is fantastic book on many level; not always easy reading but always compelling. It is the multi generational saga of a family of strong women and some rather vile men. It travels from an Italian hill village to America and details their immigrant experience there. Stella escapes death after various bizarre accidents but what is actually significant is what she doesn't and can't escape. I found her experiences, some deeply traumatic, so moving and thought provoking that she's on my mind a week or so after finishing this novel. I found the ending more than a little heart breaking, the whole scenario just utterly tragic. Beautifully written and packing a hefty emotional punch, this is such a powerful and affecting novel that I'm not hesitating to recommend it everyone I know.

I received an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to NetGalley, Hodder & Stoughton, and the author Juliet Grames.
I really, really loved this book. The characters and storyline were beautifully written and I was completely gripped by Stella, and the whole Fortuna family's story.
It is wonderful, emotive, and heartbreaking. I was so sad to have finished it. It reads like a true story, and I was almost a bit upset to discover that it was fiction, having felt so real. Highly recommended! 5 stars (something I do not give out lightly).

The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna is an absorbing historical drama. Spanning decades from the 1920s it follows the life of peasant girl Stella born in the Italian mountains and her life as an immigrant in post war America. Beautifully researched, this is an emotional read.

I really couldn't get into this book. I abandoned it at 26% as, despite all these near deaths, nothing really seemed to change. I found I never really cared what happened to any of the characters. Sorry

The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna is about a girl named Stella who grew up in a small Italian village and is a story that is told by Stella's granddaughter, starting with Stella's mother and then onto Stella herself and her interactions with her family members. I found the characters really well written; Stella herself a beauty but headstrong and resistant to doing what society expects of her. Her sister Tina is the more naive and caring of the two and their mother Assunta is full of heart and strength, crumbling to tears too often. Stella sees her father almost as a villain in her life and as the story unravels we can see why. I loved the colours and details of Stella's life, which is told without shying away from some strong topics of poverty, incest, rape, abuse and immigration. I felt sad as the story ended as felt there was more to tell, and I felt that I had grown alongside Stella in some way.. The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna is a long story but I loved it all and I can't wait to see if Stella's story continues in another book and what else the author brings us.

This is the family saga of the Fortuna’s, and follows their lives from poverty in Calabria to the USA. It follows Stella from the birth and death of her older sister (also called Mariastella), her siblings, parents and her life in Connecticut - covering 100 years. I still can’t quite believe that the author managed to fit so much into 460+ pages without it feeling rushed or shoe-horned in, it she did it!

As you can probably guess from the title, Stella’s 7 or 8 deaths feature quite prominently in this, as does her close relationships with her mother and sister. Her father as good as abandons them for the first part of her life, and then demands that his wife and children sell everything and join him in the US where he has been working. Stella hates her controlling, abusive father, but is very much restricted by tradition and religion. So, she lives under his despotic rule. There is quite a bit of abuse - both physical and mental - in this, but what is most admirable is Stella’s unbroken spirit. And she has spirit in spades.

I loved the style in which this was told: a family member researching and telling the story of her relatives, and trying to work out why Stella in her last 30 years refuses to have anything to do with the sister that she loved so much. I had to keep reminding myself that it was in fact fiction. There was a great balance of modern thinking (from the narrator) and the traditions of the older members of the family, complete with curses and spells to avoid the evil eye.

I’ll be honest, I thought I’d made a mistake by choosing this book. I really didn’t think I’d like it. I’m so relieved that I took a chance on this though, because I loved it, and I’d say that it’s well worth a read.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my copy of this book.

I'm afraid this book disappointed me for some reasons. The opening was very interesting, intriguing, but I was quickly let down afterwards.

I’m sure this is written beautifully and sheds light on a unique life lived with all its ups and downs, I just wasn’t in the market for so much misery at this point in time.
All the best to the author, I hope it does well, it just wasn’t for me.

A beautifully written cross-generational saga that takes the reader from a remote village in Italy at the turn of the 20th century, to 1940s and 50s America. This is exactly the kind of book I love; sprawling and yet intimate. I couldn’t put it down.

I can't remember the last time I was so absorbed in a book, totally immersed in the Fortuna family and in particular Stella Fortuna who is such a living, breathing, bundle of contradictions that I felt I knew her. This is an important book because although it is easy to read it deals with some very difficult concepts and situations. It is a feminist book that by not preaching, just telling what happened, would surely make anyone want to empower these women and give them choices. And not just these women, things have changed since Stella was young but not that much. It is a hugely enjoyable social history of Italian/American families, the impact of the war, childbirth, cooking. and I enjoyed how the story was pegged onto the near-death experiences of Stella who was a legend in her own lifetime. But don't be fooled, this is searingly honest and spares no details of awful abuse and distress and demonstrates that not all famililies are safe, happy places.

Stella Fortuna is one of the most original and fascinating characters I've read in a long time. I lived every moment of her life alongside her, in particular, the first half of the story. The portrayal of life for an immigrant in America was executed brilliantly. I found myself thinking about Stella and worrying about her situation when I wasn't reading this book.
An original and compelling debut. Highly recommend.