Reviews

The Paris Library by Janet Skeslien Charles

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danalovestoread's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective fast-paced

3.5

It took some time to show interest in this book, but this mainly because of the writing style. The story is beautiful and I loved learing so much about the American Library of Paris. I love watching war movies and now I love reading it. I gave it 4 stars because for me personally there wasn’t some mystery or something else that made you wanted to read more and more because you wanted to know what happens next.

But however, the story became really interesting towards the end.

ckeller48's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

4.75

meglois's review

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challenging emotional sad slow-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? No

3.5

drbloom12's review

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challenging emotional informative reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

jlynnautumn's review

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4.0

Paris plus a library would be enough to hook me into a book. Add a WWII historical fiction and you have the equation for my perfect book. I liked the book. I didn't love it. I struggled with the dual timeline because I prefer a more balanced timeline and I struggled with the Montana timeline. It just didn't captivate me as much as Paris. At times I felt like the book would never end and at others I felt like there wasn't enough book. Montana was a 3 star, Paris was a 5 star, overall it's a 4 star read for me.

carmievdb's review against another edition

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dark emotional informative sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

rochellehickey's review

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3.0

Life is too short and precarious to be petty and jealous.

This book is set in Paris at the American Library and takes place during the span of WWII and the 1980s.

Odile is a librarian who lives between the worlds of the resistance and Nazi conspirators. Her character is meant to show how normal life changed and how fear can spread between friends, family, and coworkers. While the war is going on around her it felt like the war was secondary and the primary story was how she interacted with those around her. This would be perfectly fine except sometimes the situations she finds herself in made it seem like it was trying to fit the war into the story instead of having the story in the war which made it hard to build tension. I never felt danger for any character. It was almost like the library was a sanctuary that enveloped its members from the real evils of the world except for a few. And for the few it did have devastating consequences, their stories were only on the surface and never went beyond Odile’s acquaintance.

I thought Odile’s storyline with Lily was wonderful. Two women from two different generations and countries both experiencing the same emotions at different times and helping each other grow was very interesting.

Don’t let my review fool you, it was a good book, I only felt it was lacking in some places that would make it great.

Thank you to Atria Books for an advanced readers copy for my honest and unbiased opinion.