Reviews tagging 'Cancer'

The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George

12 reviews

podanotherjessi's review against another edition

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

3.0

This book just really went back and forth for me. Some really great moments, but surrounded by mediocre context and occassionally awful moments. For example, in one scene, the main character looks at a woman and can tell just by looking at her that she's just waiting for a man to come along and take charge but she'd never admit it??? On the other hand, there's some really wonderful messages about the importance of men being open with their feelings and the need to accept soemthing has happened before you can move on. So overall, it just ended up middle of the road.

Characters: 7
Plot: 7
Setting: 5
General appeal: 6
Writing style: 4
Originality: 5
Ending:  3
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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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