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A review by mbpartlow
The Paris Wife by Paula McLain
3.0
I read this for book group. It's very hard to rate, for me.
The writing is lyrical and beautiful. That's what saves the book for readers who aren't huge fans of Hemingway.
In a way, it's like beautifully written People magazine prose. (Someone else came up with that idea first.)The real, inside story of what life with Ernest was like while he was making his name as a writer.
But it's extremely difficult to create suspense in a story that the world already knows the ending to. We already know they aren't going to stay married. We already know he committed suicide.
I think I'm tired of reading fictionalized accounts of the wives and daughters of famous men. I'd rather read about an unknown woman who made her own life than a semi-famous woman who only lived through some man.
The writing is lyrical and beautiful. That's what saves the book for readers who aren't huge fans of Hemingway.
In a way, it's like beautifully written People magazine prose. (Someone else came up with that idea first.)The real, inside story of what life with Ernest was like while he was making his name as a writer.
But it's extremely difficult to create suspense in a story that the world already knows the ending to. We already know they aren't going to stay married. We already know he committed suicide.
I think I'm tired of reading fictionalized accounts of the wives and daughters of famous men. I'd rather read about an unknown woman who made her own life than a semi-famous woman who only lived through some man.