Reviews with content warning for Suicide - The Paris Apartment

Reviews tagging 'Suicide'

The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley

198 reviews

angorarabbit's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

1.75

Context: I wish I could remember the review that made me want to read this, I thought it was going to be more mystery and less thriller.

TLDR: I got hung-up on the foster care stuff, your mileage may vary.

The plotting was pretty tight for the most part with a few plot holes that didn’t matter very much. The central mystery was interesting and fresh. Most plot twists were a surprise.

My main problem came with the characterisation. The foster care system does heavy lifting in explaining Jess and Ben. Which wouldn’t have been so bad if there weren’t some important plot points that for someone somewhat familiar with the system are just plain unbelievable. I don’t know how much experience Ms Foley has had with the system but she might have benefited from an experienced beta reader.It’s rather like a non-Roma writer with a main character who is Roma and not having some Roma readers to advise them on Roma life. Just saying, “oh, they were in foster care so they are like this” is lazy.

The ending felt like Ms Foley found her deadline approaching and her editor wanted a happy ending for all rewrite. Anyone surviving foster care could tell you that there never is a happy ending for everyone.

Content Warnings

aharper's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark mysterious slow-paced

2.75

Content Warnings

miss_mary_mac's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark slow-paced

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

2.5

Content Warnings

anapthrs's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark mysterious slow-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

3.75

Content Warnings

wickedgrumpy's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

1.25

...Yet another thriller that I did not enjoy. It was filled with characters that had one main facet which was being awful. Would not recommend.

Content Warnings

chelle22's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark mysterious tense

3.0

Content Warnings

jamie_pulsifer's review against another edition

Go to review page

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? It's complicated

3.5

This book took a little while to get me hooked, but once it did, I couldn’t put it down.
I find I always judge a mystery by how quickly I put together what was happening. Lucy does a great job of throwing readers off the scent while leaving enough breadcrumbs to make them feel smart and “in the know” Throughout. While some details were off, I was able to predict the general idea of the ending before it was revealed. Overall this book had good twists, but not as shocking as some of her other work.

Content Warnings