Saturday, January 14, 2017

*Review* #BeatTheBacklist - The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George


Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Published: June 23, 2015
Pages: 392

Synopsis

“There are books that are suitable for a million people, others for only a hundred. There are even remedies—I mean books—that were written for one person only…A book is both medic and medicine at once. It makes a diagnosis as well as offering therapy. Putting the right novels to the appropriate ailments: that’s how I sell books.”

Monsieur Perdu calls himself a literary apothecary. From his floating bookstore in a barge on the Seine, he prescribes novels for the hardships of life. Using his intuitive feel for the exact book a reader needs, Perdu mends broken hearts and souls. The only person he can't seem to heal through literature is himself; he's still haunted by heartbreak after his great love disappeared. She left him with only a letter, which he has never opened.

After Perdu is finally tempted to read the letter, he hauls anchor and departs on a mission to the south of France, hoping to make peace with his loss and discover the end of the story. Joined by a bestselling but blocked author and a lovelorn Italian chef, Perdu travels along the country’s rivers, dispensing his wisdom and his books, showing that the literary world can take the human soul on a journey to heal itself.

Internationally bestselling and filled with warmth and adventure, The Little Paris Bookshop is a love letter to books, meant for anyone who believes in the power of stories to shape people's lives.

Review

This book should have been a slam dunk for me, but sadly it wasn't. It started off completely intriguing me, I wanted to know more about the book barge and the woman who broke Perdu's heart. But I was not really treated to that information, so I started to lose interest. I just never really felt the impetus to find Manon that Perdu felt, so the trip to get there bored me, in spite of the antics that Perdu and the gang got up to on the way. Also, I really started to feel like Perdu was just pathetic, and that's who I was supposed to be sympathizing with. I mean, sure, I'm sorry he lost her the way he did, I guess, but dude brought it on himself with his dramatic reaction.

There were a couple of mini mysteries in this story, both of which I figured out before the characters did, granted that was largely because this was a story and that's just how things are supposed to happen in stories (so it was incredibly predictable.) 

There was one aspect of the story that just really made no sense to me at all though. When Perdu and Max haul up the anchor and leave on their journey through the waterways of France, they have basically no money with them, which is a bit of a problem. What makes no sense though is that at no point do they ever stop at a bank to pull some money out. I could understand Perdu not having any money, he may be a businessman but he lives like a pauper, but Max is a rather famous author, so money shouldn't be a problem. It just seemed ridiculous to me. 

The beginning of the story really was intriguing and the story flowed well, but it just didn't hold my interest like I had hoped it would. 3 out of 5 stars.

Copy received through Blogging for Books for review. - Katie 

Buy the Book


About the Author

NINA GEORGE works as a journalist, writer, and storytelling teacher. She is the award winning author of 26 books, and also writes feature articles, short stories, and columns. The Little Paris Bookshop spent over a year on bestseller lists in Germany, and was a bestseller in Italy, Poland, and the Netherlands. George is married to the writer Jens J. Kramer and lives in Berlin and in Brittany, France.

www.nina-george.com

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