Written by Janet Skeslien Charles⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
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I received a free digital copy of The Paris Library, for which I should like to thank the author, Janet Skeslien Charles, her publisher Two Roads and Netgalley.
The blurb:
The Paris LibraryPARIS, 1939
Odile Souchet is obsessed with books, and her new job at the American Library in Paris - with its thriving community of students, writers and book lovers - is a dream come true. When war is declared, the Library is determined to remain open. But then the Nazis invade Paris, and everything changes.
In Occupied Paris, choices as black and white as the words on a page become a murky shade of grey - choices that will put many on the wrong side of history, and the consequences of which will echo for decades to come.
MONTANA, 1983
Lily is a lonely teenager desperate to escape small-town Montana. She grows close to her neighbour Odile, discovering they share the same love of language, the same longings. But as Lily uncovers more about Odile's mysterious past, she discovers a dark secret, closely guarded and long hidden.
Based on the true Second World War story of the heroic librarians at the American Library in Paris, this is an unforgettable novel of romance, friendship, family, and of heroism found in the quietest of places.
Women's Historical Fiction
WWII
My thoughts:
The Paris Library is a dual timeline novel set in Paris between 1939 and 1945 and Montana between 1983 and 1989. It is told in the first person from the perspectives of Odile, a French woman, who, in 1939, worked as a librarian in the American Library in Paris, and from 1983, Lily, an American teenager desperate to grow up and leave the small town of her birth.I was excited to read this story, having been captivated by the blurb. I love historical novels set in and around World War II, as I enjoy picking out details which help me to learn more about that time period. In this novel I learned about 'crow letters'. I loved the description of the 1939-45 everyday life in Paris, the library with its subscribers, and the occasional classification of Odile's thoughts using the Dewey Decimal system. Some of the characters used in this story were real and did in fact work at the library, but I did not realise this until I read the Author's Note at the end of the book.
Lily's account tells of the loss of her mother, and the arrival of a step mother, Eleanor, some ten years older than herself. Lily resents Eleanor and sets out to make Eleanor's life difficult. Lily comes to know Odile because she has a report to write on France and decides to interview her French neighbour. Odile teaches her to speak French and they form a close friendship.
Whilst I enjoyed Odile's account of life in wartime Paris, I found the story difficult to get into. I became disheartened when the story switched to Lily's account, but kept going, reading a few pages here and there, never really wanting to spend more than half an hour on it, until I reached the end. Although I'm glad I did, because the ending brought it all together and made the whole read worthwhile.
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