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A review by jensreadinglife
Aix Marks the Spot by S.E. Anderson
3.0
Thank you to NetGalley and Victory Editing for supplying a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Provence is at the top of my travel bucket list. So I was immediately drawn to this story due to the setting.
Jamie is an American who is sent to live with her estranged grandmother in Provence for the summer. There's been an accident which has left Jamie's mother unable to walk and she thinks her parents have sent her away because it's all her fault. When she arrives, it appears her grandmother is thrilled to have her but as soon as she learns that Jamie does not speak French, she dismisses her seemingly out of hand. Alone and feeling sorry for herself, Jamie befriends Valentin, a boy her age who lives in the village. Then she discovers a letter amongst her father's belongings that appears to be the start of a treasure hunt he set up for her mother when they first met. Jamie decides that she MUST complete this treasure hunt in order for her mother to recover. She and Valentin follow the clues as the novel progresses.
I found parts of this novel to be just lovely. The descriptions of the locales and the food are incredibly well-done and I appreciated the French phrases sprinkled throughout the novel that weren't immediately translated into English (it definitely put my rusty knowledge of French to work). But I found Jamie a problematic main character. As a character, I had trouble with some inconsistencies in her personality. At times she seemed much younger than her 16 years. She was also very angry and hostile which just became increasingly frustrating as she seemed, until the very end, unable to see how she was causing much of this herself. The novel utilizes the trope of characters not communicating so that everyone is misunderstanding one another and, while that can move the plot along, I found it overused here. Side note that I found it completely unbelievable that her French father and Francophile mother would not have taught their only daughter to be bilingual.
I'm making it sound like I didn't enjoy this but there was something about this story that pulled me along. I enjoyed the treasure hunt Jamie and Valentin were on (even if it required a suspension of disbelief that the letters would still be in their hiding spots 17 years later) and Anderson does an excellent job of writing a love letter to Provence with her descriptions of the towns and villages the two visit. And don't read this on an empty stomach because you'll be craving a freshly baked baguette the entire time.
Though this coming-of-age story was uneven, I enjoyed large parts of the ride and found the ending to be by far the best part of the book.
Jamie is an American who is sent to live with her estranged grandmother in Provence for the summer. There's been an accident which has left Jamie's mother unable to walk and she thinks her parents have sent her away because it's all her fault. When she arrives, it appears her grandmother is thrilled to have her but as soon as she learns that Jamie does not speak French, she dismisses her seemingly out of hand. Alone and feeling sorry for herself, Jamie befriends Valentin, a boy her age who lives in the village. Then she discovers a letter amongst her father's belongings that appears to be the start of a treasure hunt he set up for her mother when they first met. Jamie decides that she MUST complete this treasure hunt in order for her mother to recover. She and Valentin follow the clues as the novel progresses.
I found parts of this novel to be just lovely. The descriptions of the locales and the food are incredibly well-done and I appreciated the French phrases sprinkled throughout the novel that weren't immediately translated into English (it definitely put my rusty knowledge of French to work). But I found Jamie a problematic main character. As a character, I had trouble with some inconsistencies in her personality. At times she seemed much younger than her 16 years. She was also very angry and hostile which just became increasingly frustrating as she seemed, until the very end, unable to see how she was causing much of this herself. The novel utilizes the trope of characters not communicating so that everyone is misunderstanding one another and, while that can move the plot along, I found it overused here. Side note that I found it completely unbelievable that her French father and Francophile mother would not have taught their only daughter to be bilingual.
I'm making it sound like I didn't enjoy this but there was something about this story that pulled me along. I enjoyed the treasure hunt Jamie and Valentin were on (even if it required a suspension of disbelief that the letters would still be in their hiding spots 17 years later) and Anderson does an excellent job of writing a love letter to Provence with her descriptions of the towns and villages the two visit. And don't read this on an empty stomach because you'll be craving a freshly baked baguette the entire time.
Though this coming-of-age story was uneven, I enjoyed large parts of the ride and found the ending to be by far the best part of the book.