“In December 2007, my mother died of cancer; two weeks later I was diagnosed with the same disease”
Eloisa James had read her fair share of cancer memoirs and knew what to expect. “I would be struck by the acute beauty of life. I would see joy in my children’s eyes (rather than stark rebellion), eschew caffeine, and simply be, preferably while doing yoga in front of a sunset. My better, less irritable self would come out of hiding, and I would stop wasting time at the computer and sniping at my husband.”
None of that happened. Instead, she took her family to Paris for a year.
I’m liking
In another life, Eloisa James writes romance novels, and in yet another life, she is a professor who gives lectures about Shakespeare. I found her writing easy to read and fun. I can imagine that it would be easy to spend a few hours sitting in a café with her listening to her tell stories.
“Paris in Love” is a collection of snippets about her year in Paris with her family. Eloisa James is charmingly enthusiastic about Parisian life, and doesn’t have that tone of “I am in Paris and you are not” that some travel writing seems to have. She also shares many experiences with her children (ten and fifteen) that will ring true for anyone who’s taken children overseas or been a child taken overseas.
Things that made me go hmmmm
Don’t judge a book by its cover or first sentence! The cover and title of “Paris in Love” make it look like some kind of chick lit romance, and the first sentence about cancer made me think that I had somehow got the wrong book for the cover and was about to read a cancer memoir.
The conclusion
Instead of being struck by the acute beauty of life, Eloisa learned that moments could be wasted and the world would continue to spin on its axis.
I very much enjoyed “wasting” time with this book. It would be a great gift for someone who needs cheering up or someone who is busy and so needs a book that can be read in small chunks. It does contain some travel advice for people who are planning to go to Paris, but it’s not a guide book and could easily be read for armchair travel or just for fun.
