Paris in Love: A Memoir (edition 2012)

A writer and her husband take a year long sabatical in France. She reads her Great Uncle Claude's memoir of his time in Paris and sees similarities and differences with herself. There is a mother-in-law from Italy that we might have learned more about, but i got the sense that the author was a little afraid of her. The stories of the mother-in-law's obese dog were entertaining. She used an interesting writing technique, It was like reading a series of FaceBook posts, I liked it - but it felt oddly disjointed. ( )

Daydreaming about Paris is one of my favorite pastimes. The people, the architecture, the desserts . . . all tantalizing. Intoxicating. Absorbing. If I had the funds and vacation time (both quite elusive these days), I’d be on a transcontinental flight faster than you can say macaron.

But alas. Until I can sip wine beneath the Eiffel Tower in person, I’ll have to settle for delightful stories like Eloisa James’ memoir Paris In Love.

After surviving cancer shortly after her mother recently died of the disease, Eloisa James convinces her husband, son and daughter to move abroad for a year to discover what the Parisian life is all about. With Anna and Luca settled in a new school and Alessandro learning the local ropes, Eloisa settles in to absorb the city and work on several books.

A popular and prolific romance novelist, Eloisa makes no bones about her French journey: though she may wish she and her family came away from the experience with amazing “life lessons” or a greater appreciation for family or the passage of time, what their year abroad really taught her was to try and be in the moment. Life is just life. Told as a series of vignettes, Paris In Love is a compilation of her skillfully-crafted Facebook and Twitter updates from their time in the City of Light — occasionally expanded into short essays about subjects as diverse as Anna’s burgeoning friendships, French food, a nearby dance school and more.

It was a different reading experience — and a quick one. James’ thoughts are shared in paragraph-long snippets that, while chronological, don’t necessarily connect from one page to the next. The results felt like reading someone’s travel journal: little glimpses of day-to-day life for a stranger in a strange land, trying to blend with the locals while getting some work done. The most charming passages focused on Luca and Anna, Alessandro and Eloisa’s children, and I looked forward to hearing about their ex-pat adventures in school.

Francophiles and armchair travelers will find Paris In Love to be a fast, delightful read — and James’ fans will welcome an opportunity to know the author better through her memoir. If Paris lacks sparkle for you, you’ll likely find the descriptions hum-drum — but if you’re looking to escape to the other side of the Atlantic for a few hours, James’ invitation to come along is a fun one. ( )

Funny and wonderful. It makes me wish I could live in Paris for a year (or more). ( )

I found myself bored with this one by the end. I do generally like books like this, but there was something about her story telling that was making me want to put the book down and I skimmed a bit of the last few pages.

As another reviewer mentioned, I wished this was not in short diary-style entries, and as the title is PARIS in Love, I was hoping for less about her family per say and more about Paris?

Not sure what it was, but not my favourite. Not awful, though. ( )

After an encounter with cancer, the author and her family moved to Paris for a year She shares with us her daily life and impressions which originally took the form of tweets or facebook status updates. Her precocious children and Italian husband, her husband's family, and the city of Paris itself all make this a compulsively readable memoir.
I smiled all the way through it. ( )