Lina Emerson

Quick Facts

Sixteen-year-old American runner and narrator of Love & Gelato, Lina Emerson first appears in the novel’s opening chapters as she lands in Italy and is driven to a World War II memorial cemetery outside Florence. Key relationships include her late mother Hadley Emerson, her new guardian Howard Mercer, best friend Addie back home, love interest Lorenzo "Ren" Ferrara, and biological father Matteo Rossi. Central objects and motifs in her story: her mother’s journal, running, and (of course) gelato.

Who They Are

Lina is a sharp, grief-struck teen thrust from Seattle into the sunlit strangeness of Florence. Honoring her mother’s last request, she moves in with Howard at a cemetery residence, determined to keep her suitcase packed and her heart closed. When she receives Hadley’s journal, she becomes a detective of her own life—chasing her mother’s footsteps through the city with Ren, uncovering a past that reframes her present and opens a future she didn’t know she wanted.

Appearance & Self-Image

Lina’s look—dark eyes, “gorgeous hair,” petite height—visually contrasts with Howard’s strawberry-blond, blue-eyed features, hinting early at the mystery of her parentage. After the long flight, her normally tan skin is “pale and yellowish,” her eyes shadowed, an exterior mirror of interior exhaustion. Her wild curls become a running joke and a metaphor for unruliness: hair “defy[ing] the laws of physics,” like a hedgehog on Red Bull, even “Medusa”—humor that masks and manages her grief.

Personality & Traits

Beneath Lina’s sarcasm is a careful, aching heart. She copes by observing—sometimes judging—everything around her, then uses running, humor, and a loyal friendship with Addie to keep from getting swallowed by loss. As the story goes on, the guarded girl who hates being called “quiet” learns to speak, to leap, and to stay, embodying the novel’s movement from grief and healing to renewed appetite for life.

• Grieving but resistant to pity: She bristles when Howard calls her “quiet,” not wanting her silence mistaken for lack of depth; her internal monologue aches with absence even as she refuses to collapse.
• Razor-dry wit: She jokes about “living-in-a-memorial” and side-eyes tourists; the comedy isn’t flippant—it’s a survival tactic that keeps her present without drowning.
• Athlete’s discipline: Long-distance runs become emotional processing; when feelings spike, she laces up, literally putting one foot in front of the other to think clearly.
• Loyal friend: FaceTime with Addie anchors her; Addie is the thread back to Seattle and the person who reminds Lina she’s still herself, even in a new country.
• Brave and elastic: She crosses an ocean alone, confronts a father who doesn’t want her, and—symbolically and literally—jumps into a pool, choosing re-entry into life.
• Curious investigator: The journal turns her into a careful reader of signs—cafés, towers, neighborhoods—whose meaning accumulates as she follows Hadley’s trail.

Character Journey

Lina begins the summer determined to endure it: suitcase still packed, escape plans whispered with Addie, every day counted down. The journal upends that strategy. As she retraces Hadley’s life with Ren, Florence shifts from mausoleum to map—each gelato shop, street, and tower a clue in a story that is also her own. The search forces a reckoning with the identity and self-discovery she’s avoided since Hadley’s death. When Lina learns the full truth about her parentage and confronts her biological father, the painful reveal becomes a gateway into secrets and truth: she sees why Hadley chose safety and love over blood. The sunrise at the tower is her emotional breakthrough; grief is no longer something to outrun but something to carry. By the last pages, the girl who arrived promising herself she’d leave chooses to stay—claiming Howard as family, Ren as first love, and Italy as a place to build a life.

Key Relationships

• Hadley Emerson: Through the journal, Lina meets a younger, braver, more complicated Hadley than the sick mother she remembers. Reading her words becomes the truest conversation between them—one that reshapes Lina’s anger into gratitude and shows her how love can be both risky and protective.

• Howard Mercer: What begins as suspicion transforms into trust; Howard’s patience and steadiness give Lina a safe harbor without pressure to “move on.” In him she recognizes the nature of family as chosen and enacted, not merely inherited.

• Lorenzo “Ren” Ferrara: Ren is both co-investigator and soft landing, someone who turns history hunts into joy. Their friendship evolves into love and romance not through grand gestures but through shared gelato spoons, city wanderings, and mutual bravery in naming what they feel.

• Addie: From an ocean away, Addie’s humor and honesty tether Lina to who she’s been, even as she becomes someone new. With Addie, Lina can be scared and snarky at once—a reminder that real friendship travels.

Defining Moments

Lina’s turning points chart a path from refusal to embrace—a sequence of shocks, clues, leaps, and choices that collectively mark her healing.

• Arrival at the cemetery residence: Learning she’ll live among the dead externalizes her inner state: disoriented, suspended between past and future. It’s the perfect setting for a story about rebuilding life in the shadow of loss.
• Receiving the journal from Sonia: The plot’s ignition. The journal transforms grief into a quest, giving Lina purpose and a way to re-encounter Hadley not as absence but as voice.
• The pool cannonball at Elena’s party: Lina physically chooses joy; the leap is a small resurrection, proving her body remembers aliveness even when her mind doubts it.
• Confronting Matteo Rossi: The cruel rejection hurts, but it clarifies: fatherhood is love, not DNA. The moment frees Lina to accept Howard fully and to stop measuring herself against a man’s refusal.
• Sunrise at the tower: Her emotional crest—tears, acceptance, and a vow to live. Standing where Hadley once stood, Lina understands that memory can guide rather than imprison.
• Decision to stay in Florence: The ultimate act of agency. Rather than fleeing to the familiarity of Seattle, Lina claims the future she’s built step by step.

Symbols & Motifs

• Running: Early on, running is flight—an escape from the cemetery, crowds, and spiraling thoughts. As Lina heals, it becomes forward motion, a way of mapping the city and herself, proof that she can carry grief and keep moving.
• The journal: A physical bridge between mother and daughter, the journal lets the past instruct the present. It’s also a narrative device that refracts two love stories—Hadley’s and Lina’s—through time.
• Gelato: Pleasure reclaimed. Gelato marks the ordinary sweetness that grief obscures and Italy restores; it’s “staying for love and gelato” made literal—comfort that becomes community.

Essential Quotes

This is the day that changes everything, I thought. From here on out there will only be before and after today. This line establishes Lina’s bifurcated timeline: her life split by loss. The phrasing captures both trauma’s finality and the narrative’s promise that “after” can be different—and possibly better—than she fears.

Turns out reality is as hard and unforgiving as that fire hydrant Addie and I had run into. And I had to live the whole rest of my life without her. I really did. The simile’s bluntness reflects grief’s physicality; it hurts like impact. The second sentence—short, devastating—shows Lina moving from denial to acknowledgment, a necessary step in healing.

I sprinted down the board, bouncing high and tucking into the world’s most perfect cannonball. I felt the most alive I had in more than a year. Maybe ever. The cannonball is a micro-rebirth: exuberant, embodied, loud. Lina doesn’t just think differently—she acts—and in doing so discovers that joy is not a betrayal of grief but a proof of survival.

We may not be a regular kind of family, but if you’ll have me, I’ll be your family just the same. This invitation redefines family as commitment. It validates Lina’s experience with Howard and reframes loss: she doesn’t replace her mother; she expands her circle of love.

I had Nutella on my face and my first real love sprawled out next to me and any minute the stars were going to sink back into the sky in preparation for a new day, and for the first time in a long time, I couldn’t wait for what that day would bring. And that was something. Daily life—messy, sweet, simple—becomes sacred. The image of stars yielding to morning pairs cosmic rhythm with personal renewal, sealing Lina’s arc from numbness to anticipation.