The Book of Pearl is a beautiful tale of love and longing on the brink of WWII.

I am thankful for an ARC from the author and NetGalley.

4.5/5 stars
"The Book of Pearl" is an epic love story which combine the magic of fantasy and fairy tales with the power of suitability during WWII. It is a standalone. It is a gem, in this day and age, when everything is an interminable series.
The novel has an old school feel with a beautiful female character, for whom people immediately fall in love, and an adventurous young man. But, the girl is fierce and strong while the boy is vulnerable and lost - which makes these characters more realistic.
To tell you more about it would mean to spoiler the book for you. I rated it a 4.5/5 stars because I felt a bit confused at the end. Otherwise, I recommend this book to add it to your life's TBR.

I am sorry for the inconvenience but I don’t have the time to read this anymore and have lost interest in the concept. I believe that it would benefit your book more if I did not skim your book and write a rushed review. Again, I am sorry for the inconvenience.

This one sounded interesting but I just couldn't connect. I was several chapters in and still felt lost, had no ties to the characters, and couldn't hold my interest. The writing was clean, but just not engaging.

Very interesting premise but it was hard to get into and I could not finish no matter how many times I tried.

Musings:

This was a pleasant book of magic that really made me feel like I was a little girl dreaming about fairies again. It had those hints of magic and a sad lost love that was beautifully described and often tragic. Even though it read like a fairytale it was also unique enough that I felt like I was reading a brand new tale of lore and history and that always makes me happy.

What I Loved:

The meeting of two worlds. I love how things would leak into circulation in the regular world to find Joshua as an item of proof. I think I love that idea so much because it makes me think the ‘what if our world was truly touching another that was magical like what we dream about?’ It makes me believe the other world could really be true.

The suitcases. There is something of a dragon like curiosity that lights up in me when I think about the idea of a whole wall filled floor to ceiling with suitcases that all contain all sorts of treasures. It’s even more magical to think of a man doing his best to travel with all of them always with him.

Fairies! Who doesn’t love a good story about fairies? It’s one of the most beautiful mythical creatures that brings joy to so many peoples hearts!

Tragedy. Because of everyone’s individual agendas Joshua and his fairy love are separated throughout the novel destined not to be together. It’s like Romeo and Juliet but even better because everyone is alive, but torn apart by circumstance.

Innocence. I don’t know why, but this book has this really innocent essence to it that I really enjoy. The wants and dreams are so pure and I just want to hug all the characters.

Final Thoughts:

The Book or Pearl is a really light and enjoyable novel that makes you want to dream. Seeing through the eyes of a child is probably the best way to read this pure novel. It’s a fantasy the kid in you would truly appreciate.

This was a great read, but it wasn’t necessarily my cup of tea, per se. I enjoyed it for what it was, but did have to force myself to continue reading. It had nothing to do with the writing or the plot, it was just my own tastes that made this book a mediocre one, but I can definitely see the appeal for it.

I love a good fairy tale and this one just stole my heart! Kudos to the translators: Sarah Ardizzone and Sam Gordon! As I am not proficient in French, I am trusting their tale is close to the original. But it is well told! Sort of reminded me of fairy tales I've read (Rapunzel comes to mind, as does the story of Thomas the Rhymer.) Over all an entertaining story and one that will sit on shelves along side Grimms and Andersen...

I absolutely loved reading Timothée de Fombelle's two historical fiction novels, Vango: Between Earth and Sky and Vango: A Prince Without a Kingdom, so when I saw that he had another new work I couldn't wait to read it, too. And it was, quite simply, wonderful.

de Fombelle has spun a mesmerizing tale that seamlessly weaves together the world of fairy tales and the real world over different time periods. He begins his tale, in this world, with a 14 year old unnamed, unreliable narrator, who heart has just been broken by a girl who once was a fairy, stumbling upon the house of a recluse named Joshua Pearl. Inside the house, the narrator discovers hundreds of suitcases collected by Joshua Illiån Pearl. Asked what is in the suitcases, all the narrator is told is that they contain things needed for him to return to where he came from.

Who is Joshua Pearl and where did he come from? The narrator writes "the only thing I'm sure about are these first words: "Once upon a time." A young boy standing outside a marshmallow shop in Paris in 1936 is taken in by a man and his wife, owners of Maison Pearl, a couple whose son, Joshua, had died two years earlier. Not knowing how he ended up at the shop and with only bits of memory from his past life, the boy stays with the couple, who treat him like their own son. During Christmas, 1938, the boy found his first link to where he came from in a book of fairy tales that mysteriously appeared in the the kitchen of Maison Pearl while he was cleaning up. He knew then that he had to leave to find his way back to where he came from.

Meanwhile, fascism is on the march in Europe, and when war breaks out, the boy secretly enlists in the army under the name of Joshua Pearl. In June 1941, Joshua and a companion are captured by the Germans and sent to a prison camp in Westphalia, but not before telling his companion the truth about himself. In the camp, Joshua discovers a man wearing a mermaid's scale around his neck, a second link to his former life. Eventually escaping the stalag with the mermaid's scale, Joshua ends up fighting in the resistance. There, his captain tells him that the war will stop only when the world is really to believe, but they are not ready yet, so they must have tokens of proof about what is happening.

It is these words and having already acquired the Mermaid's Scale that sets Joshua Pearl on the quest of collecting tokens of proof that will take him back to the Kingdoms, back to where he came from.

In between the tale of Joshua Pearl, whose real name is Illiån, the reader also learns the story of Oliå, the fairy that Illiån loves and wants to return to, not knowing that she had given up her powers as a fairy to be near him in the real world. But before she did that, she was cursed and told that the moment he looked at her, she would disappear forever, she could only see him from a distance. Despite their love, they could never be together.

As for Illiån, before he became Joshua Pearl, he was the younger brother to Iån, who seized power to rule over the Kingdoms from his father, the King, at age 13, with the help of Taåg, an old genie, and Iån's godfather and adviser. Iån orders that Illiån be killed because he has also fallen in love with Oliå. But Taåg disobeys Iån and banishes Illiån to a far away world from which there is no return.

Or isn't there.

Three intertwined stories lines over three time frames makes for a difficult novel to review without spoilers, though I've tried not to include any. If I have, I apologize in advance. I know this sounds like such a complicated novel, but it is a such skillfully and meticulously crafted, that the readers goes from story to story, time period to time period without getting confused. Not that it is a flawless work, but the flaws and holes in the plot are minor enough that they don't take away from the story at all.

Each character is well defined, and each world is totally imaginable. At times, de Fombelle keeps the reader in such suspense about what will happen next, it is hard to put down. I began reading this on the train from NYC to Washington DC, and I could have ridden for as long as it took me to finish in one sitting (alas, that didn't happen and I had a busy few days ahead of me with not much reading time).

In the end, it is that 14 year old boy, now a man with a wife and family of his own, who goes back to that house of the reclusive Joshua Illiån Pearl, and who ultimately writes this story using those precious tokens of proof.

The Book of Pearl does an absolutely brilliant job of asking the reader to consider this: do we create stories or do stories create us, or perhaps, is it a combination of both.

This book is recommended for readers age 12+

DNF around 13% (about chapter 6). I have no idea what’s going. Either a lot got lost in translation, or this book has no coherent plot. I’m just not invested enough to force myself to read it.

A fourteen-year-old boy runs away from home after suffering deep heart break. The girl he loved has vanished leaving no trace for him to follow. The boy journeys into the woods where he is saved from accidentally drowning by Joshua Pearl, a sixty-year-old man. Every once and a while, Pearl leaves home and arrives with suitcases full of treasures. The boy believes Pearl to be a thief, but he decides to stick around and take photographs of Pearl’s treasures. Years later, the boy has grown up and he decides to retrace Pearl’s curious life and the value of his hidden treasures scattered across Europe.
When I began reading The Book of Pearl, I wasn’t too sure what was going on. The story is not told in a linear fashion, but through flashbacks and it changes from third person to first person, and then back to third person. These vignettes are strung together like pearls until everything comes together into a breathtakingly beautiful story of a young man who does everything in his power to return back to the world he came from, and to the fairy who has captured his heart. Fombelle’s story reminds me a little of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince in its ability to weave magic into an ordinary story.
Although most of The Book of Pearl takes place in the ordinary world of twentieth century France, de Fombelle has built a beautiful world of fairy tales without very much effort. The world of Oliå, and Iliån is greatly unfamiliar, yet de Fombelle uses the language of fairy tales to effortlessly familiarize the reader with this setting. Iliån and Oliå’s world is the world we know from childhood, of magic, kings, fairies, and a jealous brother. This world in its bare bones plays upon the stereotypes of fairy tales, but leaves you feeling as if you have entered into a new world in the process.

Another one with beautiful language, but bizarre execution. The switch from 1st to 3rd person, jumps in times and worlds make this a one tricky one. Teens will have a hard time engaging.

I loved this tale of three characters from two different worlds and the fantasy mixed with the reality of WWII., love that stays true against impossible odds, and memories from youth that stay strong. I found the writing easy to follow despite the multiple storylines and I was propelled along throughout. I will be interested to hear reactions from my middle school students, who are on the younger side of its readership.

I received this book from #netgalley for free in exchange for an honest review.

OH MY!! How cute. This story was adorable. I love a good fairytale story. The love story inside a fairytale world is so incredibly written. This author did such a great job telling this story.

Thank you to Netgalley for the book.

The Book of Pearl is a multi-layered puzzle of a fairy tale. When we meet our narrator, he tells us a mystifying story of something that happened to him in his teens that drove him to the home of a man seemingly named Joshua Pearl, whose multitude of suitcases and isolated existence inspired a ferocious curiosity. But if you want to know who this narrator is or why he's telling this story, you'll have to wait, because the majority of the book is split between two different storylines, neither of them his.

Once upon a time, in a magical kingdom, a young prince named Iliån was born in a palace on a lake and came of age in hiding from the tyrannical reign of his elder brother. This is one story. In the other, our prince, cursed, banished, and alone, finds himself adrift in our world, a world that doesn't have magic, where stories seem to have no power. A world that appears not to believe. In this world, he becomes Joshua Pearl, a name he acquires from the kindly marshmallow shop owners who take him in. He goes to war. He experiences tragedy. He grows old. He searches for a way back home. This portion of the book is in large part historical fiction with a moving WWII story.

Eventually, our narrator will be drawn back into this mystery when he is a grown man with a family of his own. But in the meantime, it's the dual life story of the doomed young prince Iliån who is also Joshua Pearl. So far, so good. But every fairy tale hero must have his true love, and so this is also the story of Oliå, the fairy who gives up her magical powers and immortality for the sake of her mortal prince's love. (That's not a spoiler by the way. It's literally the opening scene of the book.) With Oliå remaining on the margins of the story, this narrative device was never going to sit well with me. In different parts of the book, Oliå is repeatedly framed as either an unseen guardian angel, or as an elusive muse for others to obsess over. And then we get various descriptions of her, in which she is more perfect than any human girl could be. Beloved by everyone who sees her at a first glance. Ethereal and tragic. Impossibly desirable, and made even more so by sorrow and loss. Etc., etc., etc.

Whether in their world or ours, Iliån and Oliå are classic fairy tale lovers, with a romance based on very little interaction, separated by time, space, and realms, persecuted beyond imagining in their quest to find each other once again. Is this true to the fairy tale archetype upon which the entire book is built? Sure, I'll grant you that. But it seemed like a misplaced way to frame a story that, at its best moments, presents belief in fairy tales and magic as a form of hope in our often dark and mundane world.

So when, at last, our narrator appeals directly to us to believe, he's unfortunately not asking us to believe in the fairies, in the cursed kingdom, in the power of stories, or in hope that the wrongs of the past will be righted (though all of these story elements are present). He's asking us to believe in this ideal of a perfect love, of happily ever after for the heroic prince and the girl who gave up everything his sake. It seems like the author has taken a really strong concept and story structure, but fixated on the wrong part of what it means for something to be a "fairy tale" to expect us to feel compelled by.

The Book of Pearl is as unique as they come. Told in such a way as if you are sitting by a fire as the storyteller weaves, you are taken on a journey that can be confusing if not read in such a way as a story unfolds. It must be read as a whole before you judge and when you do so, you will be rewarded with a gorgeous tale of lost love and fairy tale wonderment.

Thank you to NetGalley and Timothee de Fombelle for allowing me to read and review this book. I thought that it was just good. Maybe not my cup of tea.

Without checking out the synopsis, the title and cover of this book piqued my interest. I was really drawn into the story once I've started reading it; from beginning till the end, I highly anticipated the succeeding scenarios in the book.

The narrative of The Book of Pearl is a mix of fantasy and historical fiction that will get the attention of young adults and even much older readers. Even though the start of the story is a little bit confusing, I was able to comprehend what was happening as I continued to read through the succeeding chapters. I was engrossed in the story that is why I was able to finish it within almost 6 hours of reading.

This book of Timothee de Fombelle was first published in French in 2014. Thanks to the translators that it was finally translated into English, so that more readers could be able to read the wonderful story of Joseph “Ilian” Pearl and his adventures from the Kingdoms into our world.

The Book of Pearl started out a little rough for me. It opens with a fairy having given up her powers to save the life of a prince she loves. Typical fairy tale stuff, right? The writing in this prologue or whatever you want to call is felt unfinished, or perhaps translated badly, because it read like the literary version of a kaleidoscope being shaken up and you’re trying to see where the pattern is in everything.

After getting through it, however, I found that the writing was so much more enjoyable. There were some mysterious elements and people whose identities were obscured, but events and revelations began to unfold in an engaging manner.

I assumed, from the description, that a lot more time would be spent in the marshmallow shop. When that turned out not to be the case, I was a bit disappointed. Joshua’s journey does go all over the place, considering he ends up enlisting during WWII. The fairy tale elements that he finds, whether a story book or a mermaid scale, don’t initially come across as a quest for proof of his world. The two examples I mentioned he encounters by accident.

Even as the book didn’t turn out as I expected, I found myself wanting to consume it, to figure out who these characters were, to see what kind of ending was in store.

There were different points of view throughout, but only one told from the first person perspective. It was that one that was the least clear or concise for me. Everyone else ended up having a distinct identity and more than a few interconnected stories, but the man that narrated “I” and was the author of the in-story “The Book of Pearl” felt forced. His function seemed to be to insert the reader into the story, but that was accomplished without his presence. His separatness took me away from Joshua/Ilian and Olia’s story.

That aside, I think this story had a lot of interesting points and strengths regarding the power of fairy tales and what they mean to people. Stories, beliefs, their power can go so far, even so far as to break a curse and reunite lost lovers if only you’ll believe.

The Book of Pearl is a beautiful story about people caught between two worlds and lovers separated by a spell. The story is lovely and I really enjoyed it once I figured out what was going on, unfortunately the storytelling is so vague that I didn’t understand what was going on, what was at stake, who was who until the 25% mark. The first quarter made me feel like I was reading a sequel and had missed a significant amount of information I was expected to already know. Everything eventually becomes clear, but expecting to keep a reader’s attention for such a long time is a lot to ask. When the pieces fall into place the story becomes very satisfying, but it takes a lot of patience to get there.