Review by megancmahon - The Paris Bookseller

emotional informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

3.0

Spoilers!

This was interesting!

What I liked:

the atmosphere of 1920s and pre-WWII Paris was beautifully depicted; I felt like I really was outside Les Deux Magot and among all the famous authors who spent time there
It was neat to see all the famous literary characters moving in and out of Shakespeare and Company
The LGBTQ+ representation was both true to life and thoughtfully portrayed to reflect its historical context
I liked the feminist perspective. I think my favourite thing about this book was the way it made me reconsider all of the different perspectives and roles that go into publishing a book: there's a writer, yes, but there's also a publisher, typists, sales teams, marketers, financers, the whole shebang! Honestly this book really made me hate James Joyce for the way he completely screws all the women in his life - without whom his work Ulysses would never have seen the light of day. It really reminded me that so many of these famous male "geniuses" could never have done what they did without the unsung women who did a lot of their legwork
Sylvia was a great character!

What I didn't like:

There was a lot of telling and not a lot of showing - I get that Maher was trying to make it true to life but it mainly felt like the plot jumped around a lot
There wasn't really too much plot, on the whole, just a section of Sylvia's life
A lot of times I wasn't super up on what was happening; maybe that's just my lack of understanding about how publishing works, but I felt myself getting a bit confused at events
The story was interesting but I didn't feel super connected to many of the characters outside Sylvia and Adrienne and I actively disliked James Joyce (though if an author can make me hate a character that's good writing!)

Overall it was interesting but it took me a while to get into, and almost felt more like a biography than a work of historical fiction.