The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley

The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley

Read by Clare Corbett, Daphne Kouma, Julia Winwood, Sope Dirisu, Sofia Zervudachi

12 hours, 53 minutes

Published February 2022 by HarperCollins

Publisher's Summary: 

Jess needs a fresh start. She’s broke and alone, and she’s just left her job under less than ideal circumstances. Her half-brother Ben didn’t sound thrilled when she asked if she could crash with him for a bit, but he didn’t say no, and surely everything will look better from Paris. Only when she shows up – to find a very nice apartment, could Ben really have afforded this? – he’s not there.

The longer Ben stays missing, the more Jess starts to dig into her brother’s situation, and the more questions she has. Ben’s neighbors are an eclectic bunch, and not particularly friendly. Jess may have come to Paris to escape her past, but it’s starting to look like it’s Ben’s future that’s in question.

The socialite – The nice guy – The alcoholic – The girl on the verge – The concierge

Everyone's a neighbor. Everyone's a suspect. And everyone knows something they’re not telling.

My Thoughts: 

Sometimes when I finish an audiobook, I look at what's available from what's on my TBR list. Sometimes I'm just looking for something that will suit the reading mood I'm in. Which is a pretty good way to increase your chances of enjoying a book, especially when you're familiar with the author. I'm certain picking this one because of my reading mood increased my enjoyment of it. Even though I had some issues with it, in the end, it gave me just what I was hoping to get. 

Jess has had a tough life. As a young girl, she found her addict mother dead. Her half-brother Ben, the only person she has ever really been attached to, is taken into a well-to-do family and lives a life that has no room for Jess. Still, Ben is the person she turns to when she's done something really stupid and needs to leave England and when she calls him as she arrives in Paris, he agrees to let her stay with him for a while. Yet when she arrives at the apartment building, Ben isn't answering his phone and isn't in the apartment she can't believe he can possibly afford. 

There are only a few apartments in the building and Jess soon gets to know all of the residents, including the caretaker, and all of the nooks and crannies of the building, including a hidden stairwell. Only Nick, who was Ben's friend, feels like someone Jess can trust and she needs an ally. But as we bounce back and forth between narrators, we soon learn that Jess doesn't know the first thing about any of the people who live in that building and finding Ben is going to be dangerous. 

I'm glad I listened to this one; the multiple readers really worked well. I did wonder, at times, if Jess wasn't a little too quick to trust, for a girl who had grown up on the rougher side of life. But I really like the "locked-room" feel of this one and was completely taken by surprise by the two big twists toward the end of the book. My biggest issue with the book was the "tying up the knots" ending - it felt a little too easy for me. Otherwise, I really enjoyed this one a lot. 

The Little Village of Book Lovers by Nina George

The Little Village of Book Lovers

272 pages

Published July 2023 by Random House Publishing Group

Publisher's Summary: 

In Nina George’s New York Times bestseller The Little Paris Bookshop, beloved literary apothecary Jean Perdu is inspired to create a floating bookstore after reading a seminal pseudonymous novel about a young woman with a remarkable gift. The Little Village of Book Lovers is that novel.

“Everyone knows me, but none can see me. I’m that thing you call love.”

In a little town in the south of France in the 1960s, a dazzling encounter with Love itself changes the life of infant orphan Marie-Jeanne forever.

As a girl, Marie-Jeanne realizes that she can see the marks Love has left on the people around her—tiny glowing lights on the faces and hands that shimmer more brightly when the one meant for them is near. Before long, Marie-Jeanne is playing matchmaker, bringing true loves together in her village.

As she grows up, Marie-Jeanne helps her foster father, Francis, begin a mobile library that travels throughout the many small mountain towns in the region of Nyons. She finds herself bringing soulmates together every place they go—and there are always books that play a pivotal role in that quest. However, the only person that Marie-Jeanne can’t seem to find a soulmate for is herself. She has no glow of her own, though she waits and waits for it to appear. Everyone must have a soulmate, surely—but will Marie-Jeanne be able to recognize hers when Love finally comes her way?

My Thoughts: 

Last fall my book club read Nina George's The Little Paris Bookshop and it was a big hit. So when I was putting together this year's reading list and found that this book is meant to be the book referenced in that book, Southern Lights, I thought it would be a great follow up that we would surely enjoy. 

We did not. In fact, one member said she hated this book. I have never heard her say that about any book we've read; she is generally the one we count on to find the humorous bits and the highlights of books. She began with the book in print and finished with the audiobook version, which I think may have been the problem. On Goodreads, I noticed that a lot of the people who didn't like this book had listened to it and found it confusing. I can definitely see that; a lot of people who read it in print found it confusing as well. There is a lot of back and forth in the narration and Love as a narrator and a talking (although not literally) olive tree are tough for a lot of people to buy into. 

To be fair, having not that long ago read The Little Paris Bookshop and having been told throughout that book that Southern Lights was the perfect book, George set readers up with very high expectations that were all but impossible to live up to. Further, in that book we were promised that this book would explore all kinds of love but when it came down to it, this one is all about romantic love between men and women. Very traditional love, even if told through a magical voice. Then, too, the title tells us that this is a book about book lovers, which would seem to be a different book entirely than a book about all kinds of love. Honestly, books only brought these people together tangentially - Francis' book mobile was more of a way to introduce us to a big cast of characters instead of a way for the characters to come together organically. 

I think my book club agreed that a book that was primarily about Marie-Jeanne's gift and her being able to help people find each other would have made a better book. Or a book strictly about how the book mobile makes true book lovers out of all kinds of people and how they learn about each other would have been a good read. It just didn't work for us to pull the two stories together. 

For most of us the ending of a book can make or break a book and this one might well have been saved by a different ending. We spent the entire book waiting for the sainted Marie-Jeanne to be rewarded for all of the good she did with love of her own. And we waited. And we waited. It was not until there were only five pages left that George gave us the slightest hint that Marie-Jeanne might finally find love. The lesson from that? Love is cruel. Which seems a strange way to come to the end of a book all about love. 

The Paris Novel by Ruth Reichl

The Paris Novel by Ruth Reichl 

288 pages

Published April 2024 by Random House Publishing Group

Publisher's Summary: 

Stella reached for an oyster, tipped her head, and tossed it back. It was cool and slippery, the flavor so briny it was like diving into the ocean. Oysters, she thought. Where have they been all my life?

When her estranged mother dies, Stella is left with an unusual inheritance: a one-way plane ticket and a note reading “Go to Paris.” Stella is hardly cut out for adventure; a traumatic childhood has kept her confined to the strict routines of her comfort zone. But when her boss encourages her to take time off, Stella resigns herself to honoring her mother’s last wishes.

Alone in a foreign city, Stella falls into old habits, living cautiously and frugally. Then she stumbles across a vintage store, where she tries on a fabulous Dior dress. The shopkeeper insists that this dress was meant for Stella and for the first time in her life Stella does something impulsive. She buys the dress—and embarks on an adventure.

Her first stop: the iconic brasserie Les Deux Magots, where Stella tastes her first oysters and then meets an octogenarian art collector who decides to take her under his wing. As Jules introduces Stella to a veritable who’s who of the Paris literary, art, and culinary worlds, she begins to understand what it might mean to live a larger life.

As weeks—and many decadent meals—go by, Stella ends up living as a “tumbleweed” at famed bookstore Shakespeare & Company, uncovers a hundred-year-old mystery in a Manet painting, and discovers a passion for food that may be connected to her past. A feast for the senses, this novel is a testament to living deliciously, taking chances, and finding your true home.

My Thoughts: 

I've thoroughly enjoyed Ruth Reichl's nonfiction work and was really looking forward to seeing what she would do with a work of fiction. Of course, it's not a surprise that she would choose Paris for a setting, nor is it a surprise that food plays a major role. I chose this one for my book club to read and it was, by and large, a hit. In fact, I think everyone else liked it much more than I did. 

I had a lot of issues with it, to be honest. There's a scene, very early on, that should have come with a trigger warning. Given that she chose to include it, I expected it to play a much bigger role later in the book, but when I finished the book, I felt it could have, very easily, been left out entirely or at least have been minimized. 

Then there's the fact that once Stella, who has never had any real interest in food and prefers a plain meal, can suddenly discern all the flavors in a dish once she's introduced to food by a real Parisian. I know that some people are born with the ability to taste many more flavors than others of us can, but for her to be able to name them without ever having had them was a stretch. In fact, a lot of the book required a lot of suspension of disbelief. Like Stella having a boss that was ok with her extending her stay by months. 

Despite all of that, the writing about food was, as you would expect, divine and Reichl's love of fashion also comes front and center. As someone who studied fashion merchandising in college, I was familiar with the designers, the fabrics, the styles and I thoroughly enjoyed it. And, I will admit, I did come to long for Stella to find happiness and the family she had never really had (which, of course, we know she will, eventually, even when we can't figure out how she'll get there). 

Life: It Goes On - April 20

Happy Easter! We had the most low key Easter ever. Miss H had to work most of the weekend so couldn't make it up, Mini-him and Miss C went north to be with her family, and no siblings or nieces/nephews came up. So I made most of the family traditional favorites and the Big Guy and I took Easter dinner over to my dad's to have our meal with him.  If you know my dad at all, you'll know that he was very appreciative of the visit and the meal, but what he was most excited about was the chocolate pie. 

Last Week I: 

Listened To: The Hitchcock Hotel by Stephanie Wrobel. It won't surprise anyone to know that I didn't figure out who done it even if I never did trust that person. I don't have of my holds coming up soon so I'm going to have to spend some time this evening looking for something that's available to start tomorrow. 

Watched: Some more of Only Murders In The Building. 

Read: The Life Impossible by Matt Haig. A lot of great lessons in this one but maybe too much supernatural for me. Still pondering that. 

Made: Ham, cheesy hash brown casserole (a.k.a. funeral potatoes), lemonade "salad" (that's the name it came with and we eat it with the meal but it's really more of another dessert), deviled eggs, and that pie. I make Ree Drummond's French Silk Pie. It's so easy, but so decadent. The key to this one is patience. My dad doesn't eat a lot these days, but he ate two pieces of this pie! 

Enjoyed: Dinner with Mini-him and Miss C. After we went for  drinks and had a strange encounter with a very drunk, strung out young man who reminded me why we rarely go to bars. Certainly not to bars that are frequented by people in their twenties and thirties! Although he did call me "adorable" and no one's called me that in at least 40 years so there's that! 

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This Week I’m:  

Planning: With the arrival of Easter, 40 Bag in 40 Days is officially over. But as part of that, I started doing some work on organizing our photos so that will continue this week. Can I just tell you how much I wish I had at least written the year on the back of all photos? It is so darn hard to remember if a given photo was taken when your child was eight or when they were nine! Heck, I can't even remember what grade they were in in the school pictures! This will take the better part of my free time this week. 

Thinking About: What great kids we have. I love that we enjoy them as much as adults as we did when they were cute little people. 

Feeling: You know you're old when you can tweak a knee stepping up a 2" curb, which I did on Thursday. I could hardly get out to my car after work. Spent Friday working from home so I can baby it and have taken it easy most of the weekend. I'm happy to report that it's feeling much better now, but it's so frustrating that the littlest things can take me out these days. 

Looking forward to: Book club. I know I said that last week but we had to reschedule. 

Question of the week: Does your family have a big Easter extravaganza? 

**The theme of this weeks book reviews will, very obviously, be Paris