Kristine Gasbarre was living the single life in NYC that so many would be jealous of. She, however, was dissatisfied because she couldn't form a meaningful relationship with the men she met and decided to return to her hometown in Pa. after her grandfather's death to help care for her grandmother. Although her grandmother was showing early signs of dementia she passed on lessons she had learned throughout her life. One that Kristine needed to hear was that if she was to build a meaningful relationship she would need to quit focusing on herself. ( )

I love memoirs. I can't get enough of them so I was excited to receive this from EarlyReviewers. What we have in my latest memoir read is Kristine Gasbarre as she takes us on her journey of How to Love an American Man. I enjoy a good love story as much as the next gal. While reading this book, I was reminded of a similar dating memoir I read last year: 51/50: The Magical Adventures of a Single Life by Kristen McGuiness. In much the same way as 51/50, there is something so universally cringe-worthy about dating mishaps and break up scenes that you want to stop reading but you can't look away.

When the story opens, Gasbarre is in her mid-twenties living the single life in New York and finding it hard to meet a decent man. Then one night she stumbles on Adam in a bar. A dashing Englishman that she feels an instant connection with. The problem? He is about to go back home. She decides to soon go off to Italy for a nannying job, but the real reason is to be closer to him. Cringe! She barely knows the guy and she is moving to Europe. Yikes! Now, these feelings from me are coming from a woman who did many desperate things for men in her day so don't think I am sitting on any high horse. Because I am not. But that would be a different blog. Sadly, this relationship doesn't work out and to rub salt in the wound, her beloved grandfather passes away.

Gasbarre moves home to be closer to her family and heal her own broken heart, while helping her grandmother heal hers. Now, let me stop the review here. From this point on, if I were to tell too much more of the story it would give the whole book away. I don't want to do that but I will say this: it is a turning point in the memoir and a point in which makes me have a love/hate relationship with the book. The love part is this: this is one of those books that will make you cherish your grandparents like no other. I am blessed to still have all of my grandparents in my love except for one sorely missed Grandpa Bob. I love them all and talk to them on a regular basis. The love Gasbarre has for her grandma and the relationship they have is so sweet. What I didn't like is this (I think hate is a bit of strong word): the American man she ultimately falls for I think treats her like crap for most of the book yet everyone is rooting for him. I just don't get it! I can not get behind a love story where I don't like the hero. I just can't.

However, at the end of the day, I can say that I appreciate the words of wisdom contained within and think this would make a fabulous book for a book club discussion because it clearly brings up some strong feelings in me! ( )

I won this book as an Early Reviewer. I remember reading it and not particularly liking it. I thought I had written my review and just discovered that I haven't. All I remember about the book now is that I didn't particularly like it. I could dig it out and read it again to give details about why I didn't like it, but I think my experience already sums up the book: not interesting and utterly forgettable. ( )

In her late twenties, Kristine Gasbarre has had her fair share of unsuccessful relationships, dating all the wrong men. She decides to spend a year living and nannying in Italy, finding out something about her beloved grandfather's roots there. But then her grandfather dies and Krissy knows that she needs to go home, be with family, and comfort her widowed grandmother. So when her year in Italy is up, she flies home and chooses to move back to her small hometown, moving in with her parents. Wanting to help take on the care of her grandmother, Krissy realizes that her grandmother, happily, contentedly married for almost 60 years, would be the perfect person to help Krissy understand why she herself has not found the lasting love she so craves, to help her understand where all of her former relationships had gone wrong.

Gasbarre's evolving relationship with her grandmother is a satisfying and touching piece of her story. The tightening bond between the young woman and the grandmother who can teach her so much, especially about love, is inspiring. And Krissy's gentle attention to her grandmother benefitted both women so much. For a woman used to being needed, to be widowed and to have no one depending on her after almost 60 years of marriage must be unmooring, especially coupled with early stages of dementia. After a veritable lifetime of a perfect marriage, her grandmother had a store of wisdom that no one else in the family had tapped, so Krissy's desire to understand what had made her grandparents' marriage work happily for so long gave her grandmother a focus and a reason. An incredible love shines between Gasbarre and her grandmother throughout the book, when Krissy was asking for advice, when she was offering solace or alleviating her grandmother's loneliness, and even just when she chose to put her own plans on a back burner to take her grandmother to the doctor or to run errands.

It was this sense of caring for another person, coupled with a healthy respect for self, that Gasbarre's grandmother was trying to teach Krissy was a vital ingredient in any relationship. But Krissy was still learning and another relationship played out under her grandmother's eyes failed. A second love interest, endorsed by her grandmother, holds much more promise. I only hope that Gasbarre's grandmother was correct about Dr. Christopher, the major player in Gasbarre's dating life, and his potential to be "the one" because he comes off, in this memoir, as completely and totally unappealing. Emotionally unavailable and selfish, he is so dedicated to his work (and it is good work indeed) that he cheerfully goes completely radio silent for months, gives with one hand while taking away with the other, and stands Krissy up without showing a single shred of remorse. I just can't find what makes him such an appealing potential partner or believe that tolerating this uncaring behaviour is what her grandmother means when she says that Gasbarre must support her partner in his goals, accept him, and be completely in tune with his feelings and wants. What I saw on the page was just about 100% abnegation of her own wants and needs to a man who feels, at least as he is portrayed here, reluctant at best and unworthy at worst.

I found myself extremely frustrated by all of Gasbarre's dating relationships (including with Dr. Christopher) not because she was going about them incorrectly and not because she was asking her grandmother for advice, but more because she felt so needy in them and because she was so desirous of having what her grandparents had that she was willing to stay in each relationship long past the time that she should have, desperately trying to make them work by subsuming her own worth. Her familial relationships were much more appealing and evenly balanced than any of the relationships she had with men. And her relationship with her grandmother, where they became two equals, even while her grandmother gave her advice, was most satisfying and touching of all. Overall, this slowly moving, introspective memoir was fairly evenly balanced between evoking interest and annoyance in me. ( )

Gasbarre moved back home to DuBois, Pennsylvania following the death of her beloved grandfather, the head of her loving family. She was a little lost, professionally and personally. The man she loved moved to Bahrain, and she was losing interest in her job as a nanny in Italy.

When Grandpa dies, he left behind a bereft wife. Krissy always admired her grandparents' marriage, and now she had the opportunity to spend time with Grandma and ask her how she and Grandpa made their marriage work. Could Grandma give her advice that she could use?

One thing that Grandma tells her is "if you are really concerned with finding somebody to love then I am telling you that you have to stop focusing on yourself." When Krissy can't believe that her grandma is telling her to put aside her needs for a man, Grandma responds "if you love someone, that's what you do. It comes naturally."

Grandma goes on,
"A friend, Krissy. A man needs someone who supports his work. Someone who hugs him and means it when he walks in the door at night. You want to be with a really good man? You have to have courage. And patience. Lots of patience."

Grandma's advice borne of years of practice is compelling. Her husband was a successful, charismatic, hardworking, business owner, and it wasn't always easy being married to him. Krissy listened to her grandma's advice and stories and tried to process it. Is this advice still relevant in today's world?

Krissy was set-up on a date with a highly eligible oral and facial surgeon, Chris. Chris was handsome, smart and building his practice. Their first date did not go well, and Krissy next ended up dating Tucker, a college student six years her junior.

Her relationship with Tucker had its ups and downs, and after a disastrous weekend fishing trip that Gasbarre describes in brutally honest detail, ends badly. I can't imagine there is a woman out there who can't relate to that section of the book.

Gasbarre is also honest about her grandma. She is a bit of prickly woman, and I'm glad that Gasbarre resisted the temptation to portray her grandma as a sainted lady. She often tried the patience of her children and Krissy.

The life of a widow is tough, and Gasbarre does a masterful job in her description of it. I really felt the ache of Grandma's loneliness, and it is a feeling that many of us who have long, happy marriages will sadly have to face at some point in our lives. The scenes where Krissy and her grandma are the only single ladies in a group of marrieds at parties and family gatherings touches on the loneliness that people can feel lost in a crowd.

Gasbarre's writing is wonderful and heartfelt; she chooses the perfect phrase and words, and she balances Grandma's life and advice with her own journey to find her place in the world. The titles of the chapters are Grandma's words of advice- "Know When To Say I Love You" "Support His Work" "Get Your Own Life Settled".

If I have any criticism, it is that Gasbarre compares her feelings about her troubled relationships with her grandma's loneliness at losing her husband. I don't think you can compare the loss of a husband of sixty years with the loss of relationship of a few months; there is no comparison. Someday she will realize that.

How to Love an American Man has been compared to Eat, Pray, Love, but I find this to be a stronger book. Telling Grandma's story alongside Krissy's search for a loving relationship really touched my heart, and makes it less self-centered, as has been the (justified) knock against Eat, Pray, Love.

This book will appeal to many women- those who have love and lost, as well as those looking for lasting love. ( )