Though I liked the book, I made the decision when I finished not to review it on my site because it didn't fit into my editorial schedule. I may include it in a review post or possibly a book list post in the future.

The reason I agreed to review Paris by the Book by Liam Callahan were myriad. I like mysteries and this book was one. I like books about books and those who are passionate about reading them, writing them, and promoting them to others. And the setting of the novel didn’t hurt—Paris. I also was intrigued by what the author of the book said:

“My novel is about dreams. Paris dreams, life dreams, family dreams, and what happens when those dreams conflict with reality….What role do dreams play in a marriage? What if they change? And what if someone—a spouse—or somewhere—a city—you thought you knew well turns out to be utterly different?”

The novel is crafted around a mother named Leah and her daughters Ellie and Daphne. Leah is from Wisconsin but has wished for her entire life to visit Paris. She loves the literature, but also, she has always wanted to make films and the film The Red Balloon is a particular favorite of hers. Leah’s husband, Robert, always loved Paris too. In flashbacks—because he disappears one day—we discover that he dreams of writing, and that he has been allowed to pursue that dream. One day long after his mysterious disappearance, Leah makes a chance discovery of some plane tickets that Robert purchased for the family before his mysterious disappearance. These tickets bring Leah and the girls to Paris, a place Leah has dreamed of being all her life. In Paris, another chance event causes her to decide to stay in Paris and buy a bookstore, where she and her daughters go about reconstructing their lives, which have been disrupted by Robert’s absence. They search for Robert there and wonder if they have glimpsed him or if it is only their imagination.

This book earns a mixed review from me. Leah and her daughters were interesting characters and many of the secondary characters in the novel were also. I thought some of the characters, however, were quite selfish and narcissistic. The novel was quite suspenseful at times, but also moved along slowly at times. I did love reading about what it was like for them adjusting to Paris as Americans, and the descriptions of other expatriate Americans that lived in Paris before them. I enjoyed the time spent on books and authors, but others might not.

One area the book addressed well was the anguish that parents experience when they wonder if they have done a good job as a parent.

I will close with some quotes from the book. First, two quotes from Leah about The Red Balloon and its author/filmmaker:

“The Red Balloon depicts a Paris that is gorgeous but also bleak: a young boy befriends a magical red balloon as large and round as a beach ball; they explore the city for roughly thirty‑two minutes; then bullies fell the balloon with rocks. There are few deaths in cinema as excruciating as the balloon’s, whose once‑smooth surface puckers hideously as it shrinks and falls to the ground. This all lasts just sec‑ onds, or as any child watching will tell you, just longer than forever.”

“Lamorisse had made a beautiful film. And a handful more. And he’d made wine and ceramics and patterned fabrics, together with his family, in the hills above Saint‑ Tropez. He invented the board game Risk. And an aerial camera sys‑ tem called Helivision that the makers of the James Bond film Goldfinger had used, and so, too, Lamorisse, in the skies above Iran’s Karaj Dam, shooting a documentary for the last shah.”

The book also talks a lot about the Madeleine books and their author’s life and books for adults and children.

Here is one more quote that reflects the American in Paris angle. Leah is walking her daughters to school.:

“Madame Grillo is often cleaning her sidewalk as we pass. She takes great delight in our morning routine: “courez, les filles, courez!” She gave Daphne and Ellie their own mops when we moved in. Ellie gave hers to me. Daphne used her mop so often she asked for a new one that Christmas.
“Bonjour, Madame,” I call as we hurtle by.
“Les Américains toujours passionnants!” she calls back, although I’m not quite sure that’s what she means. Neither of us is a native French speaker; Ellie insists we are not passionnants but pressés. Re‑ gardless, I like Madame. I think she likes us, or at least the daily show we provide.
If we run hard and the lights favor us—although the lights, too, seem to know we are American, and enjoy making life that much more difficult—we will make it to school just before the doors close. This is a fraught moment, whatever your nationality; one does not want to be locked out. And if you are more than twenty minutes late, you are sent to a special room, something like detention, but whose French name is emphatically more grim: permanence. But today, suc‑ cès. The girls disappear into the building, never glancing my way, so mortified are they that I’ve accompanied them: parents don’t belong here. Few come. And those who do almost never go in; with few exceptions, parents are expected to stay outside.
So I do, and this leaves me to study the lunch menu, which is prominently posted on the outer wall. Cassoulet today. And for din‑ ner? The school does not serve dinner, but the woman who heads our school takes a particular interest in food, and so sometimes posts suggestions about what les parents should serve, based on what our children have been fed earlier. Tonight: poulet, chicken. Non frit, a note clarifies, I assume just for me: not fried.”

Thank you Dutton and NetGalley for the Advanced Reader’s Copy of this novel and for allowing me to review it.

I just loved this novel and the plot was fantastic! I loved it until I got to the ending and felt like I was hit by a truck because there was too many unanswered questions and I didn't like the way it ended at all but everything besides that was great. I really felt Robert and felt I could relate in quite a few ways. I thought the story had wonderful characters and the setting was gorgeous! I mean, a bookstore with an apartment above painted beautiful red(my favorite color) and in beautiful Paris. I didn't like the way mental distress/illness was perceived by one of the characters at some points but with it's flaws, I'm still glad I read this book and enjoyed in the beginning, the tale of a romance with two awkward and unique people that fell in love.

I wanted to like this title more than I did. I just isn't care for the main character, she was self indulgent. I loved the premise but I never warmed up to the characters.

All in all, there were lovely passages, but to sum it up: it is too long for the story that’s been told.

A haunting, compelling tale set in one of the most beautiful cities in the world. The opening pages grab you immediately and you fall in love with Leah as she sets out with her daughters to find her husband. Paris, as usual, closely guards its secrets, and Leah follows a serpentine trail for her elusive, eccentric husband. The path takes her to places she never could have imagined )including an English language bookstore) and the reader is drawn into the dizzying conclusion. Highly recommend. So happy I discovered this talented author and will read more of his work.

Paris by the Book is a slow, almost languid novel that shows the author's love for the city. The characters are engaging, but slow to develop and the real star of this book is the way the atmosphere in Paris is created and conveyed. I like the idea of tracing a literary mystery, even though I was not terribly gripped by it. That being said, the writing was eloquent and I would probably read more by this author in the future.

This is a book that requires time! It is quite slow moving at the beginning, but it picks up after about halfway through. The narrator, Leah is likeable enough. Her daughters are wonderful! Leah's marriage is difficult to understand at times as her husband takes "write aways" where he leaves his wife and 2 daughters for days at a time to supposedly write. When he goes missing during a write-away that he never returns from, his wife and daughters head to Paris in the hopes of tracking him down and finding out what happened to him.

The writing about Paris is wonderful and the references to Madeline and The Red Balloon are interwoven in an interesting manner although they become a bit overdone. The book is very hard to stick with at the beginning. I put it down quite often until I got over halfway through and then, I became much more invested in the story and really wanted to see what happens!

Leah has always been obsessed with Paris. As a child she was fascinated by Albert Lamorisse’s The Red Balloon movie based in France, and from there sparked a desire that only grew with time. Robert is a writer trying to make a name for himself. When his paths cross with a beautiful woman in a bookshop, his life changes forever.

The two start talking about their favorite French authors: Lamorisse of The Red Balloon for her, Ludwig Bemelmans of Madeline for him. As they discuss the books and Paris, they begin to fall in love.

Fast forward years later, they have married and now have two daughters. Robert hasn’t made a break-through in writing, and Leah forfeited her filmmaking career for speechwriting. One day, Robert disappears and no one has heard from him. This isn’t too unusual, Robert would leave on writeaways to work on his novels but he did not leave a note this time. The search for Robert has come up fruitless, but his family refuse to believe that he is dead.

Months after his disappearance, a single clue falls out of a cereal box. This begins a stream of clues that leads them to a bookshop in Paris. Leah and the girls fall in love with Paris, and together they try to heal but they keep looking for glimpses of Robert.

Paris by the Book is such a good story that really touched my heart. I happen to be picking up books that are set in Paris, and the more I read the more I want to visit. This book was no exception. It touched on some of the not so touristy parts of the city and the difficulties of Americans living in Paris. But this book goes so much deeper, it’s a family trying to get their lives back together. Paris allows them to do that, without letting go of what they left behind.

Paris by the Book was almost a 5 star read. But I had to knock it down to 4 for two reasons. One, the Prologue seemed misleading of Leah’s character. We are introduced to her as a ‘man chaser.’ She’s looking for her husband and when Leah sees a man that resembles Robert, she follows him throughout the city before heading home. But in the body of the novel itself, I don’t see any clues that Leah is searching. Even her daughters make the comment that she’s not searching. But maybe the author means to portray that Leah is looking, but not searching. Two, I have mixed feelings about how things tied up in the end. That’s all I’m going to say without giving away spoilers.

Paris by the Book by Liam Callanan receives 4 stars.

This book starts off really odd and then grew on me. I didn't like the beginning, but enjoyed it as it went on. A read that I think you have to read slowly and give it time to enjoy.

I didn't get past the first couple pages, which were about a character stalking men. It creeped me out and didn't match what I thought I would be reading based on the description of this book. Maybe if I'd given it more time, it would have grown on me, but I have other things to read.

A sweet, light read, recommended for anyone who enjoys Paris as a fictional setting. The relationship between mother and daughters rings true, and there are moments of unexpected humor.

I didn’t want to give a star rating on this one because sadly I wasn’t able to finish it but since it’s required to post my review I felt that all I could do was 1 Star. I absolutely loved the description of this one and was so exited to get the galley but try as I might I just could not plod through it. I’ve tried 3 different times but I just can’t seem to connect with it. I’m not even really sure why, it just didn’t grab me and feels very disjointed. Maybe that evens out as the book progresses but for me there isn’t enough here to warrant a 4th attempt.

We loved Paris by the Book and shared it with our followers on Book Garden. The link is below, thanks so much for sharing a copy with us!

Leah loves the Paris depicted in "The Red Balloon," and Robert loves the Paris of the Madeline books. They meet when Robert catches Leah shoplifting a copy of "The Red Balloon," and love blossoms. They end up married, with two children and a pact that allows Robert to disappear whenever he wants as long as he leaves a note. When a disappearance without a note takes place, Leah takes her children to Paris to look for him. Once there, she and the girls end up running a used book store and wondering if Robert is alive. The book is full of beautiful descriptions of Paris, as well as fantastic characterization. The plot moves rather slowly, but once the reader is caught up in the Parisian atmosphere, the French immersion compensates. In the end, as Leah comes to understand what happened to Robert, the pace picks up considerably and there is a sense of closure as well as future potential.

I chose this book from NetGalley.com because it seemed to have all the elements for a great read -- a setting in Paris, a cozy bookstore and a family mystery. Unfortunately these elements never quite jelled, and i was left feeling frustrated and disappointed.
Leah recounts the story of the mysterious disappearance of her husband, a children's author and father of her two daughters, and how she attempts to solve the mystery and recover her husband and her former life. Unfortunately nothing about her husband seems worth saving. He is either deeply depressed or fatally flawed and all of Leah's praise and loving memories can't persuade me she isn't better off without him.
The story of the family's move to Paris and buying into a quirky bookstore could have made up for the depressing back story, but unfortunately, Leah continues to make bad choices which left this reader wanting to take her by the scruff of the neck and give her a good shake. Stories where kind strangers or unexpected infusions of cash keep the plot going always get points taken away in my assessment, and this book uses both. Nowhere does Leah take control in any satisfactory way. In fact, her daughters seem to thrive despite their mother. All in all, a weak story that really missed the mark.

This book was a puzzle in so many ways. I loved the storyline. I loved the mystery although it was quite vague. I loved the descriptions of Paris. I didn’t like much of the writers style. It was stilted and strange. And the book had a very slow start with too many references to Madeline and the Red Balloon. I especially didn’t like the way Robert had no real motive for leaving. But the story was fresh and interesting and worth reading overall. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for providing an ARC.

Leah discovers one day that her husband, Robert, has gone missing. At first she didn’t think much of it because Robert often went off on trips to do his writing. But he always left a note. Except this time there was no note. Leah and her daughters carry on their day to day lives until clues begin surfacing and things aren’t making sense. One clue lead them to Paris, where they end up staying and running a bookstore (a dream Leah and Robert always had). Leah and her daughters are convinced they have seen him on various occasions, although it never seems to pan out. So is he alive or is he dead? While I was originally intrigued by the title and storyline, it was a bit more slow paced than I thought it would be. The first half of the book was pretty slow and uneventful, but I did keep reading to find out the story!

Thank you to the publisher for providing this complimentary ARC in exchange for an honest review. This is a story about couples, marriage and family, and what can occur when a family member struggles with depression. I found this book engrossing and perplexing at the same time. The narrator doles out pieces of information slowly and out of chronological order, leaving much for the reader to sort through on their own. Much of the story takes place in Paris, and wandering its streets through this book kept me reading to the end.

Paris by the Book

A Novel

by Liam Callanan

PENGUIN GROUP Dutton

Dutton

General Fiction (Adult) , Literary Fiction

Pub Date 03 Apr 2018

I am reviewing a copy of Paris by the Book through Dutton and Netgalley:

Robert Eady am eccentric novelist abruptly vanished leaving his wife behind as well as their daughters, a clue in an unexpected place, plane tickets to Paris.

Trying to uncover clues Leah decides to head to France with their girls hoping to find clues of where her husband may have went. Upon her arrival she finds a manuscript, one she had not even known he had been writing, the novel had been set in Paris. The Eady women follow the path of the novel to a small, floundering English language bookstore whose owner is ready to sale. Leah is surprised to hear herself accept the offer on the spot.

The family is settling into their new Parisian life and find themselves tracing the literary paths of some Parisian Classics, including Madeline and the Red Balloon, hoping more clues arise. A series of startling discoveries makes Leah realize she may not be as ready to solve the mystery as she thought she was.

I give Paris by the Book five out of five stars!

Happy Reading