The Little Paris Bookshop: A Novel
By: Nina George / Narrated By: Steve West, Emma Bering, Cassandra Campbell
Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins
Oh wow—hated by some, uhm, MANY… but me? I really liked it!
It’s like this. I started The Little Paris Bookshop with inCREDibly loooow expectations after having an unfortunate wallow in The Bookshop of Yesterdays. I s’pose I was feeling that a bookshop, ANY bookshop type o’ book was going to be as fraught, as eye-roll inducing as that book was; plus the reviews for this audiobook right here, the most popular ones simply shrieked: Run Away From This One! Clichés Abound!
And then to start it all, Steve West, a British sorta dude, is narrating a book with French heroes/heroines. And boy! does he lay the accent on plenty thick: it was almost comical and rather reminded me of a certain French skunk of cartoon fame. I think what saved the initial groan at hearing the accents from turning into outright loathing is that I’m NOT French! Thus, I’m spared having to feel outrage at any and all butchering. My ignorance saved me, I tell you! Is that not awesome, or what?!
Also, if you’re going into this book because the Publisher’s Summary made it sound like it would be a journey of self-discovery as a trio of misfits drift down canals, selling books as beauty is revealed to them… you’re in for a bit of a disappointment cuz that’s not what the book is about.
Mostly, it’s Monsieur Perdu being a heart-of-stone man when it comes to his own emotions; he is, however, a mender of hearts and minds and souls when it comes to other people who come to his little boat bookshop. Individuals come onboard asking for one thing, and Perdu is so intuitive he can dismiss their wants and give them what they really need in their lives, be it healing, romance, adventure, intellectual stimulation. More often than not, he’s right on the money with his offerings.
He lives in a building filled with many eccentric characters who would dearly love to engage him, have him open up. But it’s not until he helps a new tenant, who’s just left an abusive relationship and has nothing, by giving her a table, that things start to get moving in his life, that things start to get melting in his heart. Cuz in a drawer in that table (It’d been sealed shut by an ancient paint job) is a letter from his dearest love who’d left him years ago. Perdu and the tenant woman have a soulful interaction when she hands him the devastating letter which he’d never had the heart to read, and it sets Perdu off and running.
He sets his sights on the vineyard the woman owned, where she lived with her husband (Yup, she was rather married), and he looses his boat and goes down the river, selling books to make a little money here and there. Along with him is an overly earnest young writer whose muse has left him, and after a stopover to teach the young author how to live via YES! Doing the Tango, a chef filled with life and good cheer joins them. Also joining them is Perdu’s favorite author, the woman who wrote his all-time favorite, most awe-inspiring book ever.
So the Summary suggests that they all should be having adventures as they stream along on the bookshop boat, right? Uhm, noooo. Cuz the book is more about Perdu learning to inhabit his own body again, learning to feel each beat of his heart and to appreciate it. Yes, the young author needs to learn how to live before he can have something to write about, but that’s addressed off and on, so he’s not our main concern—just a sweet side story when compared with Perdu slowly growing, thawing, developing.
I do mean slooooow, just to warn ya. Perdu’s search for himself has him leaving the boat and going to live by the sea and in the middle of nowhere. And this is a good 1/3 of the book, so be prepared for introspection galore as he makes small discoveries along the way, as he continues to send letters back to the abused woman from his apartment building.
But see? I didn’t find it appalling; neither did it feel to me as though the story was dragging along. I was all in for Perdu becoming a warm-hearted person before he could address a Journey’s End wherein closure could be considered possible. As he swam in the sea, losing the paunch he’d developed by being sedentary and not caring, and as his skin became browner and browner through the sun shining on him as he brought thoughts up to the light like so many bits of ocean glass, I was there with him, enjoying as each little bit of life rippled out from his center and went on to touch those he came to love. I didn’t miss the bookshop coursing through the water; I didn’t lament the lack of adventures. There’s adventure enough to be had when a person takes the first few steps.
Sure, sure, there IS a bit of a twist at the end which is alluded to once in the book that might induce an eye-roll, but if you’re good with the rest of the book, you’ll just sigh a bit and will forgive author Nina George.
Cuz I mean, what’s a little eye-roll when you’ve got an entire book of sweetness and character development?
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