As part of my New Year’s Resolutions, I am working through my To Be Read shelf and tracking the books I read in an effort to be more mindful about my reading and more critical in my thinking.
I managed to talk the book club into reading French Lessons by Ellen Sussman at the beginning of the summer; we were looking for a lighter read and this one seemed to fit right in to a lot of people’s expectations. It was definitely on the fluffy side: the book follows three connected people through a day in Paris. As per usual for this sort of book, a grand denouement happens by the end of the book so that the thread of each story is nicely untangled, and the characters all seem to reach some earth shattering conclusion. It was…fine. What was most frustrating to me was not really the books fault: books set in Paris never feel like accurate representations of my French experience, and tend to feel stereotypical instead. Meh.
And Now We Are Five 