Loved all the references to Niki de Sainte Phalle and the actual Tarot Garden - although at times it felt bolted onto the main story. I also enjoyed the pop culture references (Madonna meeting with her Italian family, for example) and the character of Annamaria was well developed. The other characters felt two-dimensional however, each standing in for a particular type, and there was a tendency for the author to tell too much, rather than just show relationships developing. The use of the diary also felt unnecessary (although the letters of course did have a purpose).

An ambitious novel that perhaps tries to work in too much, this tells the intertwined stories of two families in Tuscany (one rural entrepreneurs, the other Roman political intelligensia), which try to be a stand-in for changes in Italy's social climate in the mid-twentieth century. Alongside that we have the coming-of-age of Annamaria, the daughter of one family; various love affairs; as well as the role of the real-life female artist Niki de Saint-Phalle who is creating her monumental 'Tarot Garden'.

The named Tarot cards are used to structure the narrative, a conceit which adds interest but perhaps also indicates a certain level of predetermination in the storytelling: it's more schematic that I'd have liked.

Also, I wonder if something was lost in translation? There's a marvellous opener (The Fool) but the actual story itself frequently feels distanced and 'told' (as opposed to dramatised), with the characters somewhat at arms length, and some not unexpected 'life lessons' by the end. This distance is broken down at times such as when we have diary entries but overall I felt detached from the story.

I also felt that it is sometimes hard to detect the tone of the prose: at times it feels 'straight', at others as if it wants to be gently satirical, or lightly comic. So an interesting conception for sure, but this wasn't always as engaging as I'd hoped.