"The Enchanted April" by Elizabeth von Arnim (again)

This is the third time I have read this book.  I simply adore it.  I'm beginning to think that no actual holiday in Italy could compare to the pure delight of reading about these remarkable ladies spending April there!

Four British ladies who do not know each other pool their resources and rent a villa in Italy for the whole month of April.  Lotty wants to escape her weary life for a bit and breathe some new and different air.  Rose wants to get away from the fact that she is sure her husband no longer loves her.  Mrs. Fisher wants to sit alone in the sunshine and think.  Lady Caroline wants to figure out what to do with her life.

They are all trying to escape their ordinary lives and get some rest in a new environment.  But they discover that they carry their lives with them.  In fact, although all four ladies had grown tired of being who they were, when they reach their Italian villa, they gradually become more their true selves than ever before.  And it's that peeling back of artificiality and exposure of the real, honest people inside themselves that transforms each of them, not the beauty of an Italian spring or the sunshine or the (comparative) solitude.

And, once the ladies have been able to reveal their true selves to themselves and to each other, they can meet other people with poise, balance, confidence, and charm.  Lotty's and Rose's husbands arrive and discover their wives are as dear and sweet and whole as they had been years ago when they were wooing.  A third male arrival benefits from both Mrs. Fisher's and Lady Caroline's transformations as well, though he doesn't know this because he had not met them before.

All in all, this book makes me smile, laugh, and rejoice.  I'm sure I'll continue to read it every couple of Aprils for the foreseeable future.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: G.  It's wholesome and sweet and uplifting.