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3.55 AVERAGE
3.55 AVERAGE
dark
informative
mysterious
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
THE QUEEN OF PARIS by Pamela Binnings-Ewen follows Coco Chanel as she tries to reclaim ownership of her company amidst a dramatic backdrop of Paris’ occupation during WWII. Living with the “enemy” in the Hotel Ritz in Paris, she becomes a collaborator to save a family member from a Nazi death camp.
Holy drama. I knew nothing about Chanel’s background. I found her to be proud, selfish, and full of malaise toward the injustices happening around her. It is quite a testament to the compelling writing of this book that I even finished it, I so despised Chanel by the end of the book. If you are okay with unsympathetic characters, I’d pick up this book to see a different kind of take on a WWII historical fiction.
Thank you to Netgalley and Blackstone Publishing for a chance to read this complimentary advanced reader’s copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.
I am posting this to my Goodreads and Amazon accounts immediately. Thank you!
Holy drama. I knew nothing about Chanel’s background. I found her to be proud, selfish, and full of malaise toward the injustices happening around her. It is quite a testament to the compelling writing of this book that I even finished it, I so despised Chanel by the end of the book. If you are okay with unsympathetic characters, I’d pick up this book to see a different kind of take on a WWII historical fiction.
Thank you to Netgalley and Blackstone Publishing for a chance to read this complimentary advanced reader’s copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.
I am posting this to my Goodreads and Amazon accounts immediately. Thank you!
It's a well written and well researched story, engrossing and interesting.
Coco Chanel was a collaborationist and this is her story. It's not easy to write an engrossing story about someone on the wrong side of history but the author did a good job in delivering a story that keeps you hooked.
The historical background is vivid, the characters are fleshed out and the plot flows.
I recommend it.
Many thanks to the publisher and Edelweiss for this ARC, all opinions are mine.
Coco Chanel was a collaborationist and this is her story. It's not easy to write an engrossing story about someone on the wrong side of history but the author did a good job in delivering a story that keeps you hooked.
The historical background is vivid, the characters are fleshed out and the plot flows.
I recommend it.
Many thanks to the publisher and Edelweiss for this ARC, all opinions are mine.
I wanted to give this book a 2.5, but since GR prefers whole numbers, I'm going upward with the rating just for the sheer difficulty of what the author is doing here.
When one thinks of modern figures of glamor and potential interest, Coco Chanel ranks high. How could the founder of the House of Chanel not be endlessly fascinating? But unfortunately, as we know, Chanel's story is more than a story of fabric, fragrance, and parties in the mid-century. It is also the story of Nazi collaboration.
That would make most writers run away from Chanel as the protagonist of a work of historical fiction--unless one ignores or diminishes entirely her Nazi past, she's too unlikeable for us to follow.
But Ewen here takes up Chanel's case without such acts of posthumous PR. Taking a page from the depiction of Scarlett O'Hara, perhaps, Ewen shows us a Chanel who is a fighter, who has endured great loss and underdog status, as well as a Chanel who is deliberately myopic and self-centered when it comes to the larger impact of her choices. Her Chanel is neither entirely victim nor entirely hero, and that's what makes the character so interesting on the page.
What's iffier here are some authorial inventions to help explain Chanel's motives at points. For example, the emphasis on family feels logical, but as this bit of authorial construction ends up a large element in the story, I felt myself taken out of the story, wondering if we'd entirely gone off the rails of historical fiction. (The author does explain her choices at the end of the work, but I am speaking to the experience of reading the book.)
(Note: This unbiased review is based on an ARC provided by Netgalley.)
When one thinks of modern figures of glamor and potential interest, Coco Chanel ranks high. How could the founder of the House of Chanel not be endlessly fascinating? But unfortunately, as we know, Chanel's story is more than a story of fabric, fragrance, and parties in the mid-century. It is also the story of Nazi collaboration.
That would make most writers run away from Chanel as the protagonist of a work of historical fiction--unless one ignores or diminishes entirely her Nazi past, she's too unlikeable for us to follow.
But Ewen here takes up Chanel's case without such acts of posthumous PR. Taking a page from the depiction of Scarlett O'Hara, perhaps, Ewen shows us a Chanel who is a fighter, who has endured great loss and underdog status, as well as a Chanel who is deliberately myopic and self-centered when it comes to the larger impact of her choices. Her Chanel is neither entirely victim nor entirely hero, and that's what makes the character so interesting on the page.
What's iffier here are some authorial inventions to help explain Chanel's motives at points. For example, the emphasis on family feels logical, but as this bit of authorial construction ends up a large element in the story, I felt myself taken out of the story, wondering if we'd entirely gone off the rails of historical fiction. (The author does explain her choices at the end of the work, but I am speaking to the experience of reading the book.)
(Note: This unbiased review is based on an ARC provided by Netgalley.)