Paris by the Book (ePub)

The sudden disappearance of her husband is nothing new to Leah Eady, he has done it again and again in the almost two decades they have spent together. He needs some time-out for his writing, to gather his ideas. But this time, things are different. She cannot find his “away-note”. He never leaves without a short letting them know that he’d be back again soon. When Robert does not show up again after weeks, Leah and her two daughters are devastated. Some clues lead her to believe that he could be in Paris and thus the three of them head for the French capital. Sometimes things just happen and later you cannot recollect what exactly was the decisive moment, so Leah finally finds herself in Europe owning a lovely bookshop. The longer they stay there, the more they adapt to their new life, a life without Robert. But every now and then, he shows up again. They see him in a picture, they imagine having crossed him in the streets. But: is he even still alive?

The book sounded so lovely that I had to read it. A bookstore in Paris, a kind of extraordinary love story, the frequent allusion to Albert Lampoisse’s short film “The Red Balloon” – these are the perfect ingredients for a great feel-good bitter-sweet story. Yet, it did not completely catch me.

Somehow there were too many breaks in the story, I never knew exactly where it was going too and thus it turned a bit lengthy at times. The characters unfortunately lived too much in the books they read and films they watched to ever find themselves really in Paris and therefore the charm of the town got completely lost.

I liked the way the protagonist and her struggle with the situation are portrayed. Even though I think the construction of their relationship is too awkward to be authentic, the moment of not knowing what happened to her husband and being responsible for two teenagers while coping with your own emotions – that’s all but easy. Figuring out how to survive might lead to extreme decision like going to Paris and starting anew.

All in all, there were lovely passages, but to sum it up: it is too long for the story that’s been told.