Reviews with content warning for Suicide - The Paris Apartment

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Reviews tagging 'Suicide'

The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley

230 reviews

jaynereel's review

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dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.75

this was great! it did take a minute to fully get into but not that long — all of a sudden I was sooo invested! i carried this book everywhere with me this week even going out last night lol i honestly could not imagine sitting on the train not reading it. and a great ending with multiple twists I wasn’t expecting. loved it!

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kathleencoughlin's review

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dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.25

Overall interesting. I felt like the Meuniers got off too easy.

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bookswithmybulldog's review

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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hales230's review

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dark mysterious tense

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I was incredibly excited for this book when I first heard about it. I'm one of Those People who feels that their life was changed by their study abroad experience, and I try my hardest to not be insufferable about it, but gosh do I love books set in Paris, and this was in many ways exactly what I expected it to be in that regard. I'm not sure if I'm a little biased because the city is so familiar to me already, but I really felt like I was there - Lucy Foley knows how to set a scene.

This is an interesting, sort of locked-room mystery, and I was hooked from the beginning. Jess needs to get out of the UK immediately, so she calls up her brother, Ben, and asks if she can come stay for a while. He agrees reluctantly, but when she gets there, he's not answering the door or his phone. He's left her a weird voicemail, and it's all she has to go on. She tries to get some answers from Ben's neighbors, but they're a strange, unfriendly bunch, and she's starting to get a bit freaked out.

Lucy Foley definitely has a formula - I've read The Guest List as well, and it's similar in that there's a Thing that's happened, and you see the perspectives of a group of people who all seem suspect in some way or another, and a bunch of secrets become uncovered along the way before you get to the big secret of how/why the Thing happened. It may be a bit formulaic, but that doesn't mean she doesn't do it well. I really liked the pacing of this book - honestly better than The Guest List. It felt like we were uncovering secrets at a normal rate, not it all just sort of getting thrown in in the last quarter of the book, like I sort of felt with The Guest List. The layers get peeled back in a much more satisfying rate in The Paris Apartment, in my opinion.

And the characters, ugh. I didn't particularly like any of them, but they sure were interesting. Jess and Ben have a complicated past that was really interesting to unravel, especially not actually knowing Ben, just hearing about him from the other characters. Sophie -the socialite - was the consummate parisienne. Besides the whole dark secrets that all these characters have going on and the absent husband, she reminded me a lot of my wealthy Parisian host mom - it's an archetype, and Foley really nailed it, but still gave Sophie a lot of interesting depth. Nick - the nice guy - is the type of character I never fully trust in these types of books (everybody always has some deep dark secret), but he was really interesting and even though I found him a bit predictable, still a good counter to Jess' character (also, lol that his name is Nick Miller and her name is Jess - Lucy Foley, did you do this on purpose? She mentions that Jess can't Google Nick because all that shows up is New Girl, but I wonder if Jess was coincidental or not). The other characters - Camille (the girl on the verge), Antoine (the alcoholic) and the concierge (who is never named) - had me intrigued too (less so Antoine, since he isn't one of our narrators, but nonetheless) -but Sophie, Nick, and Jess hooked me the most, I'd say.

Serious spoilers!! Read at your own risk!! I have to add in some parts about what I did and did not see coming. I totally did not guess that the Meuniers were a family, and just like Jess, I was like omg how did I NOT see this??????? It made SO much sense once it was explained. I did, however, guess that Nick was gay very early on. The vague mentions of Amsterdam had me convinced that him and Ben either hooked up or killed someone. The wine as a front for what basically amounts to prostitution was crazy - I figured it was some sort of front, but I didn't fully see that coming. And then at the end, I don't know how I didn't consider very seriously that Jaques was also dead until I read Nick unsettled, staring at an alive Ben, wondering who the heck he just buried - like literally I feel like I should've seen it coming but alas I didn't think that hard about the missing patriarch, mostly because he seemed terrible. I did view Nick as the red herring of who she sort of wants you to think did it, and thought that it was Mimi, and I was both right and wrong there, I guess. Right perpetrator, wrong victim. The twist with the concierge was the perfect addition for her character, too - it made SO much sense and I liked the way it tied all of them together, and you understand why she's lived like this for so long.

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klfgasaway's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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lovelymisanthrope's review

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I read this for the March pick for The Literally Dead Book Club, but truthfully I would have picked this up on my own because of how much I loved "The Guest List". I love how many POVs there are in this novel because you, as the reader, get to see so many sides of the story play out. Even with so many POVs, I think Lucy Foley does an incredible job of fleshing out all of the characters and giving us enough breadcrumbs that we are invested in all of the characters. There is the "main mystery" of what happened to Ben, but all of the characters have secrets and motive to make Ben disappear.
This story gave me "Lock Every Door" vibes, which I LOVED because that is one of my all-time favorite thrillers. Some of the mysteries I did see coming, but some I was shocked by, which definitely kept me invested.

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