whiskey_and_cheese 's review for:

Black Girl in Paris by Shay Youngblood

3.5

emotional hopeful slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

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I had a mixed bag of feelings about the book. I enjoyed some parts, but I also found it frustrating. The author had some interesting ideas, but they struggled to connect them in a coherent way. It felt like they were telling a bunch of short stories that didn’t really fit together. Maybe that was intentional, but it still made it hard to follow the plot.

There were some really beautiful lines in the book, though. One of my favorites was, “He was the sound of a slow train leaving, a boat rocking in a stormy port, like something that could take you away or bring you home again.” That was a reference to Ving in the story/chapter titled Lover.

The book had a lot of characters, and it was hard to keep track of them all. The ones the author did focus on, I wanted to know more about. They would come and go, and it was like they were playing hide-and-seek with the story.

The book started out slow, but it eventually picked up enough to keep me going. We understand why the main character is in Paris, and we kind of see her plan come together at the end. It was like watching a Wizard of Oz/you had it all along kind of way.