Book 17: The Paris Wife
I have struggled with writing the entry for this book. I finished it a week ago and have since moved on to book 18 without yet being inspired. I think the problem I have with this book is that I have no feelings about it one way or another. I liked it, didn’t love it and didn’t hate it. She’s a good writer, not great and not bad. The story is okay, not captivating and not boring.
I spent the first half of the book feeling like it was a redo of Zelda. I liked Zelda, but what I loved was that it took place during the same time as the movie Midnight in Paris, which is one of my favourite movies, so throughout the book I kept looking forward to cross-overs with scenes from the movie. The Paris Wife didn’t have this same appeal for me, because Zelda had already achieved it. Is a way, I wish I had read The Paris Wife first, because I think it’s the better book of the two.
Admittedly, things picked up in the second half and the story really started to flow for me, but I felt is not quite worth the effort it took to get there. I read it to the end for two reasons; I rarely stop reading a book I’ve started unless it’s REALLY awful and it’s a BBCE book so I am extra-committed.
It is possible that if you are a bigger fan of Earnest Hemmingway, this book might really resonate for you. Hemmingway’s wife is an admirable woman, with great strength of character, and Hemmingway comes across as less of a jerk than what I understood about him before reading the book. Also, apart from The Sun Also Rises (which I probably should have re-read first) and the Old Man and the Sea, I haven’t read any of his books and none of them have made my reading wish list.
Rating: Skip it, unless you haven’t already read Zelda, in which case borrow it.