Happy Friday evening all!
Delighted to share with you today my review for this beautifully told and vividly written story. A book that finds the beauty in the ordinary and makes it extraordinary.🎨
My Thoughts
Beautifully written and vividly told. Alex George’s debut is dazzling and packed with stunning pros. This is the story of a day in a life of four regular people in post WWI Paris. Camille, Souren, Guillaum, and Jean-Paul are all living seemingly ordinary lives, but they all have a story to tell. Told in short chapters we get to know each of these characters both through their current actions and flashbacks to their past. There was also a sprinkling of well-known historical figures throughout the book, such as Hemingway, Proust, Josephine Baker, and Gertrude Stein. The beauty of this book was in the storytelling it was quite magical.
Each of these characters spoke to me but I found Jean-Paul and Souren’s stories extra compelling. Jean-Paul’s grief was palpable and Souren’s determination was admirable. This was true literary fiction and while the writing was beautiful it was also quite dense. This is not a light easy breezy read, but it is definitely worth your time. This book will appeal to fans of historical fiction, literary fiction, and stellar storytelling.
This book in emojis 📰 📓 🗝 🎨 🎭
*** Big thank you to Flatiron for my gifted copy of this book. All opinions are my own. ***
About the Book
“Like All the Light We Cannot See, The Paris Hours explores the brutality of war and its lingering effects with cinematic intensity. The ending will leave you breathless.” (Christina Baker Kline, author of Orphan Train and A Piece of the World)
One day in the City of Lights. One night in search of lost time.
Paris between the wars teems with artists, writers, and musicians, a glittering crucible of genius. But amidst the dazzling creativity of the city’s most famous citizens, four regular people are each searching for something they’ve lost.
Camille was the maid of Marcel Proust, and she has a secret: When she was asked to burn her employer’s notebooks, she saved one for herself. Now she is desperate to find it before her betrayal is revealed. Souren, an Armenian refugee, performs puppet shows for children that are nothing like the fairy tales they expect. Lovesick artist Guillaume is down on his luck and running from a debt he cannot repay – but when Gertrude Stein walks into his studio, he wonders if this is the day everything could change. And Jean-Paul is a journalist who tells other people’s stories, because his own is too painful to tell. When the quartet’s paths finally cross in an unforgettable climax, each discovers if they will find what they are looking for.
Told over the course of a single day in 1927, Alex George’s The Paris Hours takes four ordinary people whose stories, told together, are as extraordinary as the glorious city they inhabit.
Berit Talks Books 