Reviews with content warning for Animal death - The Little Paris Bookshop

If you cry easily and like to do it, this book is for you. I was crying from beginning to end but in the best way.

This book is about a man looking for himself after trying to erase himself for 25 years. He ends up finding others along the way (people, cats and book related things). A book about grief and how it can be felt individually or collectively, about not letting life be static and opening up to others and yourself.

But if you don’t like SAD books just skip this one

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starshine1's review against another edition

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inspiring reflective medium-paced

Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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amykwrites's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character

4.75

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macaronsandmermaids's review

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adventurous challenging emotional inspiring lighthearted reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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kelly_e's review against another edition

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emotional 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

2.25

Title: The Little Paris Bookshop
Author: Nina George
Translator: Simon Pare
Genre: Fiction
Rating: 2.25
Pub Date: April 26 2013

T H R E E • W O R D S

Disappointing • Charming • Slow

📖 S Y N O P S I S

Jean Predu isn't just a bookseller; he considers himself the literary apothecary, prescribing books to those facing hardships. And yet he can't seem to help himself, still haunted by the disappearance of his one great love. In fact, all he has left is a letter, which he has never opened. When he does, he embarks on a voyage abroad with floating bookstore to find out the end of the story.

💭 T H O U G H T S

I thought I was going to love this book - the book blurb sounded like the perfect read for an introverted and anxiety riddled woman who has often found comfort in books. Unfortunately the literary apothecary aspect plays only a minor plot point here. The concept was great but the execution was poor and I didn't love it like I wanted to. In fact the middle seemed to drag and I found myself easily bored, I ended up having to tandem read with the audio in order to finish it. There is no denying the beautiful prose throughout, I just think this would have been a much better book if it had gone in a completely different direction. Keep in mind this is a book in translation so it's quite possible some of the magic was lost along the way.

It didn't work for me, but if contemporary romance is your cup of tea than you should probably see for yourself.

📚 R E C O M M E N D • T O
• contemporary romance readers

🔖 F A V O U R I T E • Q U O T E S

"'I became myself when my son died,' he said falteringly, 'because grief showed me what's important in life. That's what grief does. In the beginning it's always there. You wake up and it's there. It's with you all day, everywhere you go. It's with you in the evening; it won't leave you alone at night. It grabs you by the throat and shakes you. But it keep you warm. One day it might go, but not forever. It drops by from time to time. And then, eventually ... all of a sudden I knew what was important - grief showed me. Love is important. Good food. And standing tall and not saying yes when you should say no.'"

"Death doesn't matter. We will always remain what we were to one another."

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replaceblue's review against another edition

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hopeful reflective relaxing medium-paced

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

3.75

I enjoyed this book a good amount! I love the premise of healing through stories; searching for something that isn't tangible or not knowing what you're searching for, only that you're searching. It approaches healing in a very comforting way - that healing takes time, as we all know; that healing still hurts; that there is a "hurting time" between each end and beginning; that you can only heal when you open yourself up to the world again. It's got a lot of moments that will strike the reader close to home, whether it be regret that you passed your life by or grief of losing someone you loved or cold dread that you have waited too long and fucked up irrevocably. When I read the last one I genuinely felt Jean's dread. I liked the male friendships as well; Jean and Max in particular have a very heartfelt one that I don't often see in male characters.

There are some things in the book I wasn't fond of, however. Pretty much every woman in the story winds up hot for one of our male characters, even if they just met. Jean is probably the biggest offender of this, being our main character.

He dances with someone once and she winds up infatuated with him by the end of the night, for one.

I was a little disappointed by the female characters in this book as a result. I like Catherine, at least!

Samy is probably the one I wanted to see more depth to. Considering that she wrote Southern Lights I would've thought that she would play a bigger role in the story...but she seems a bit like a surface-level manic pixie dream girl who does what she likes with no reason, rushes off to romance Cuneo immediately, and leaves the main plot of the story a few chapters later. At least it was her doing the romancing instead of being romanced LOL.

There's some kind of polyamory, sort of, kind of. It's not my place to talk about portrayals of polyamory, but it was nice to see a relationship where one of the partners involved knows and consents to their partner having other relationships. It winds up falling on monogamous ways of thinking

where "one man would never be enough for her" and "I've committed a sin by loving more than one man" and so forth, though Luc does lament that Manon didn't have to be so hard on herself.

I also feel like the chapter with

Luc

could have come a few chapters earlier...I thought the book was gonna end with

Jean settling down South after the book detailed his routine and healing and getting along with the people and I kept staring at the remaining pages like "WHAT ELSE IS HE GONNA DO?"

I liked the ending a lot though.

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