I Love You Like a Tomato

I Love You Like a Tomato by Giordano, Marie. mass_market edition. ISBN: 9780765345882.

ChiChi Maggiordino will do anything to get Gods attention. She will hold her breath, stand on tiptoe for an hour, walk a mile backward, climb all stairs on her knees... anything. When her grandmother teaches her how to use the Evil Eye, telling her its how Jesus Christ made his miracles and how the Italians got rid of Mussolini, ChiChi realizes its what her prayers have been missing. Now she can get started on the business of making her mother happier by helping her find love, and healing her brothers weak lungs. But ChiChis family lives in Minneapolis, and its the 1950s. For an Italian immigrant family, sometimes it seems like nothing can make life easier. ChiChis mother still pines for her husband, a long-dead American soldier; ChiChis brother is disdainful of her sacrifices and penance-he doesnt understand what his older sister already knows, that sometimes God needs to be bribed. When her grandmother passes away, ChiChi steps up her search for meaning and happiness, but it seems to be fruitless. And she struggles, the way so many women do, because her love for her family is suffocating, even while it fulfills her. Its not until she meets two Italian dwarves, and they teach her of the ancient clown tradition, the commedia dellarte, that she comes to understand that in order to make everyone else happy, she herself must be happy. But first she must find her own way in the world... and learn to accept that not even the power of the Evil Eye can keep people from changing.