THE VERY PICTURE OF YOU by Isabel Wolff

Ella is a respected portraitist and is not happy when she is commissioned by her sister Chloe to paint Chloe's fiance, Nate, whom Ella loathes. Nate is aware of Ella's feelings and so confronts her during the first sitting. It turns out to have been a misunderstanding on Ella's part and now she finds herself very much enjoying Nate's company during there sittings. Need I say more? Do you see where this is going?
Everything about this book was so predictable. Her long-lost father contacts her and Ella does not want to see him based on what she has heard from her mother. Yet it takes the whole book for Ella to discover her mother's lies even though they are so obvious. A person who sees her mom's portrait at the beginning of the book states that she looks like she is hiding something. Her mother was a caricature of a character and it made it very annoying. Her planning of Chloe's wedding and going so overboard and the fact that Chloe didn't want to be involved in the planning didn't set off alarms for anyone in that family? Are they all stupid?
The worst for me was the annoying habit of one or two words being italicized in every sentence of dialogue. The over EMPHASIS on EVERYTHING made me want to THROW this book across the ROOM. Annoying isn't it? The editor should be SHOT.

I think this book bothers me so much because it could have been decent. It is interesting that Ella learns so much from her subjects as they sit together for hours at a time. And many of them have interesting stories to tell but it gets lost in the unnecessary family drama and predictable plot.
I did like that it was set in London but that is hardly enough.
Do NOT waste your MONEY on THIS book. Luckily, I got this free from amazon vine or my review might have been nasty.
my rating 1/5