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mandi4886's review
challenging
emotional
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Police brutality, Sexism, Violence, Death, Physical abuse, Antisemitism, Classism, Forced institutionalization, Genocide, Grief, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Suicidal thoughts, and War
frenandjen's review
emotional
informative
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
Content Warnings
Moderate: Blood, Confinement, Xenophobia, Child abuse, War, Antisemitism, Death, Deportation, Genocide, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Police brutality, Colonisation, and Violence
Minor: Alcohol and Sexual content
passionatereader78's review
challenging
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Refreshing historical point of view of WWII. I've read many other historical fiction books based on events during WWII. It was nice to reading from a Librarian's point of view. Great writing!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement, Death, Deportation, Hate crime, Suicidal thoughts, Injury/Injury detail, Genocide, and Gun violence
Moderate: Torture, Police brutality, and Child death
megelizabeth's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
3.5
"She crossed the Seine. There was not another soul on the vast Place de la Concorde, not a single car motoring down the Champs-Élysées, France’s grandest traffic hazard. In the liveliest city in the world, she could hear a hairpin drop. The stillness was strange. She’d never felt so alone."
For most of the way through, I was, aside from a few niggles, really enjoying this book. I found both Odile's and Lily's characters interesting and well-fleshed-out, and loved that we get to follow several years in both timelines, so it really feels as if you get sucked right into their lives. There's a great cast of supporting characters too, and I enjoyed following the development of several of the relationships. I particularly loved the strong focus on friendship and community. The book is also rich with historical detail, and provides brilliant and insightful domestic perspectives to both the Second World War and the Cold War. In particular, of course, it shines a light on the American Library of Paris and what went on there during the former war, a chapter of history I previously knew nothing at all about.
However, I unfortunately came away feeling slightly disappointed. Firstly, the blurb misleads you to think there's going to be a prior connection linking Odile and Lily, whereas this link turns out to be so ridiculously tenuous that it's just infuriating. It would've been so much better not to pretend there's such a link in the first place, as the story would've worked fine without it and I wouldn't have gone in with the wrong expectations.
I also really didn't like the way the end of Odile's time in France and decision to move to the US was dealt with. I understand the historical social context and the expectations placed upon women at this time, and the added heightened emotions associated with wartime, but it still wasn't believable to me that Odile would've felt so strongly the way she apparently does, and made the decisions she does. At the very least, these elements could've been addressed in the chapters set in the later timeline, but they aren't and that really frustrated me, especially as the book otherwise contains a lot of great messages (though it does also briefly romanticise adult-minor relationships and is pretty uncritical of the police).
Finally - and this is more of a personal gripe - I didn't know until I read the author's note at the end that Odile's colleagues at the library are all fictionalised versions of real people, i.e. using their real names and known elements of their life stories, and that's something I really don't like in historical fiction and that makes me very uncomfortable. As well as the issues discussed above, this also made me look back on the storyline running through the earlier timeline in a very different way, and consequently I came away much preferring Lily's later coming-of-age story to the story of the wartime Paris Library, which is such a shame as, despite my feelings towards the way it ended, I did for the most part enjoy younger Odile's story, and it has a lot of great elements and is at times very cleverly-told. It's just a shame that things weren't wrapped up in a more fitting and less harmful way.
For most of the way through, I was, aside from a few niggles, really enjoying this book. I found both Odile's and Lily's characters interesting and well-fleshed-out, and loved that we get to follow several years in both timelines, so it really feels as if you get sucked right into their lives. There's a great cast of supporting characters too, and I enjoyed following the development of several of the relationships. I particularly loved the strong focus on friendship and community. The book is also rich with historical detail, and provides brilliant and insightful domestic perspectives to both the Second World War and the Cold War. In particular, of course, it shines a light on the American Library of Paris and what went on there during the former war, a chapter of history I previously knew nothing at all about.
However, I unfortunately came away feeling slightly disappointed. Firstly, the blurb misleads you to think there's going to be a prior connection linking Odile and Lily, whereas this link turns out to be so ridiculously tenuous that it's just infuriating. It would've been so much better not to pretend there's such a link in the first place, as the story would've worked fine without it and I wouldn't have gone in with the wrong expectations.
I also really didn't like the way the end of Odile's time in France and decision to move to the US was dealt with. I understand the historical social context and the expectations placed upon women at this time, and the added heightened emotions associated with wartime, but it still wasn't believable to me that Odile would've felt so strongly the way she apparently does, and made the decisions she does. At the very least, these elements could've been addressed in the chapters set in the later timeline, but they aren't and that really frustrated me, especially as the book otherwise contains a lot of great messages (though it does also briefly romanticise adult-minor relationships and is pretty uncritical of the police).
Finally - and this is more of a personal gripe - I didn't know until I read the author's note at the end that Odile's colleagues at the library are all fictionalised versions of real people, i.e. using their real names and known elements of their life stories, and that's something I really don't like in historical fiction and that makes me very uncomfortable. As well as the issues discussed above, this also made me look back on the storyline running through the earlier timeline in a very different way, and consequently I came away much preferring Lily's later coming-of-age story to the story of the wartime Paris Library, which is such a shame as, despite my feelings towards the way it ended, I did for the most part enjoy younger Odile's story, and it has a lot of great elements and is at times very cleverly-told. It's just a shame that things weren't wrapped up in a more fitting and less harmful way.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent, Death, War, Racism, Antisemitism, and Violence
Moderate: Blood and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Adult/minor relationship and Child death
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