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A review by rissaleighs
The Paris Hours by Alex George
3.0
Ok, at first, this book blew my socks completely off.
The writing is SO evocative. I especially loved how vividly the author described Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. Without mentioning the title, you knew exactly what it was after just a few words. All the mentions of music throughout are just gorgeous.
However, the characters and actual story left me underwhelmed. The story follows a day in the life of four ordinary Parisians with some flashbacks to WWI and their earlier lives. The four main characters also brush elbows with a lot of celebrities from that era -- Proust, Hemingway, Josephine Baker, Ravel, Gertrude Stein.... That was a fun element, but I found it kind of outshined or obscured the rest of it. Two of the four main characters blended together for me, and the four storylines were a bit to juggle. At each new chapter it took awhile to orient back to who and what and where we were. Their storylines eventually wove together in some intricate and interesting ways, but the ending ultimately didn't satisfy.
And then, purely a matter of taste, the graphic violence and sexual content wasn't really what I wanted out of this read either. (Or any read, but you know.)
As a portrait of Paris in the late 1920s, I'm sure this book is deliciously spot-on, so I'm sure plenty of readers will love it just for that. But ultimately, I don't think the story is going to be one that sticks with me.
Thanks to the publisher for a free ARC!
The writing is SO evocative. I especially loved how vividly the author described Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. Without mentioning the title, you knew exactly what it was after just a few words. All the mentions of music throughout are just gorgeous.
However, the characters and actual story left me underwhelmed. The story follows a day in the life of four ordinary Parisians with some flashbacks to WWI and their earlier lives. The four main characters also brush elbows with a lot of celebrities from that era -- Proust, Hemingway, Josephine Baker, Ravel, Gertrude Stein.... That was a fun element, but I found it kind of outshined or obscured the rest of it. Two of the four main characters blended together for me, and the four storylines were a bit to juggle. At each new chapter it took awhile to orient back to who and what and where we were. Their storylines eventually wove together in some intricate and interesting ways, but the ending ultimately didn't satisfy.
And then, purely a matter of taste, the graphic violence and sexual content wasn't really what I wanted out of this read either. (Or any read, but you know.)
As a portrait of Paris in the late 1920s, I'm sure this book is deliciously spot-on, so I'm sure plenty of readers will love it just for that. But ultimately, I don't think the story is going to be one that sticks with me.
Thanks to the publisher for a free ARC!