I’ve loved the books I’ve read that were set in bookstores so I was eager to read this one after I read the description. The beginning was confusing but once the story moved to Paris and into the bookstore, it turned a corner for me and I was engaged by the charismatic George, the adorable Peter and Annabelle, crotchety Madame, and the enigmatic Declan as well as the sense of place Callanan’s descriptions of Paris provided.

The single fly in the ointment for me was Robert. I was perplexed by the relationship between he and Leah. I just didn’t get any spark or romance between them and I didn’t understand Leah’s support and tolerance of Robert’s “write-aways” where he would leave for indeterminate periods of time. Robert’s absences were hard on both Daphne and Ellie and led Ellie to ask, “He didn’t hate us, did he?” We learn that this dysfunction went on for 18 years. It felt like Leah put her selfish husband ahead of the welfare of her girls. Without strong and clear leadership from their parents, the girls became very mature and my favorite characters. I was thoroughly sick of him before the family left for Paris.

This was a coming of age for Leah as well as for her girls and i was glad she didn’t give up. Without giving anything away, the end was worth the journey.

I hope this book is edited further before publication as I really liked the first half but felt it dragged out the second part of the story for way too long and in too much detail. THe premise of the story - a frustrated writer disappears leaving his wife and daughters to journey to Paris and create a new life for themselves was quite interesting. I loved the bookstore setting and the Parisian characters, as well as the experiences of Wisconsinites learning to adapt to life in Paris. However, I felt that the plot twists (not to be revealed here) were not believable and I did not care for the book’s ending.

If A MOVEABLE FEAST was Ernest Hemingway's 1920's love letter to Paris, this book is Liam Callahan's 21st Century epistle to the city.

This book is as filled with pain and longing as it is with love, but it presents the City as a central character in a story of hope, of promise, of fear, of disillusionment and of acceptance.

I read each page with anticipation that the story would turn sunny---and, although that doesn't happen, it does demonstrate strength of character, of love of family, and of faith in the promise of the future.

Netgalley provided me with a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

To be honest. I did not enjoy this book as much as I should have for a book about living in Paris. For me, I felt like the author never moved past the past of the story. Even the parts that were taking place present day felt like more exposition. The pacing seemed endless and unless the reader was very familiar with Madeline or The Red Balloon I feel like they might not understand some of the metaphors or points of the story. Overall, there were some scenes and descriptions of Paris I loved, but this wasn't as captivating or intriguing at I'd hoped.

I tried pretty hard to get into this, but just really struggled. I gave up around 20% in. Hopefully someone else loved it thought!

I I felt very confused by the characters. I didn’t think they were developed enough and there was not enough information until too late in the book to understand why they were living in Paris. I felt that by the time it became clear to me I had lost interest in the story.

Not my cup of tea. The characters are flat and I couldn’t connect with them. Hard to get into. The most interesting parts of the book was the history of the author of the Madeline books and information on the creator of The Red Balloon. It could have been heart-warming or suspenseful, but just falls flat. The author could have done so much more to make this an engaging book.

The first couple of pages of this book failed to grip me, but, c'mon... Paris, and a bookstore? I had to keep reading. It took me a while to fall into the rhythm of this novel, but the story will haunt me for a long time.

Leah has a missing husband. It takes most of the book to figure out how, exactly, he is missing. As a missing person, I wasn't able to get to know Robert Eady as well as I did the other characters. From what I did learn, I was exhausted by him and his neuroses. Leah tells us he was an active father and husband, but I never believed it. From all I read, he was absent. It also feels like Leah was inhabiting a world without living it as well, from her boring-but-profitable job as a speechwriter, to her staying state-side for 20 years while yearning for Paris. Robert's disappearance upends everything.

How Leah deals with his absence, as well as dealing with (sorta) owning a bookstore in Paris and raising teenage daughters in a foreign country while finding her own life, made for an engrossing read. It's a meaty book, one that kept me reading for hours on end.

Paris by the Book has a great opening line, "Once a week I chase men who are not my husband." Midway into the story of Leah whose husband disappears from time to time leaving her and teenage daughters, I suddenly realized I was reading a work of fiction- the story was that real. Leaving their home in Wisconsin with plane tickets that were mysteriously left for them the family ends up in Paris where Leah amazingly acquires an English language book store. What luck! The girls are enrolled in a local school and all are soon immersed in the Paris they had long imagined. Leah continues to search for her husband including finding unusual clues along the way. The story is touchingly told with seemingly impossible twists and turns that were somehow believable. Strong writing and the ability to identify with the pain experienced by the main character were a plus for this reader.

As a Francophile and total bookworm, I do believe this book was written for me. From just the opening lines, I was completely transfixed, happily following the main character on her mission to find her missing husband. Liam Callanan creates deliciously descriptive sentences that bring this story, the characters and Paris to life. C'est Magnifique!

Interesting premise and who doesn't like a book about books set in Paris. I couldn't quite believe the husband's machinations, but I did think the wife and daughter's coping with grief was very poignant. The ending, however, was unsatisfying. to me.

This book, which I read as an e-galley, should have been a slam dunk for me, with its Parisian setting and literary themes, but it wasn't at all what I expected. Based on the cover (yes, I judged it on its cover!) and description, I guess I thought I was in for something akin to The Little Paris Bookshop or The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry. Paris by the Book is more complex than those other bookstore books. There were passages about Paris that I absolutely loved, and marked to reread before I travel there later this year. ("We were doing something wrong, but I didn't really care; I've always felt, in exchanges like this at Paris restaurants, particularly over wine, that it's my job to do something wrong. To do otherwise is to dash expectations, deny the sommelier some righteous pleasure, the kitchen some titters.") Callanan's Paris is nuanced - more so than some of his characters - but I'm not convinced (in spite of long-winded efforts to contextualize) that readers unfamiliar with Madeline and The Red Balloon would be able to fully appreciate the depiction. (To be clear: I don't think he should have offered more description of the works - I think he should have relied on them less.) And though I hesitate to admit it, I took offense at some of the assumptions about book knowledge or lack thereof. ("If a black mark was flecked across the bottom of the bound pages - something invisible to absolutely everyone else in the world but authors and booksellers - that meant it had been remaindered.")

But my main objection, which I see that some other reviewers have also expressed, was the book's length. I just got tired of the drama of Robert's disappearance.

The book is well written and has an intriguing premise. Sadly, it never really clicked for me. It begins with a woman who painted her book shop red and is following men who look like her husband and several chapters later we are back beginning with the red book store , following men who look like the husband. The author lost me in those first several chapters of backstory. The author writes well and someone else might love this book, but not me.

I enjoyed this very much and felt like it presented a realistic and terrific view of a city I love. It read, truly, like a non-fiction story, and it kinda broke my heart what the family went through. I will recommend it.

An interesting book about a woman and her two daughters and how they cope and move on after the disappearance of the father. Throughout their marriage, he would take sudden "writeaways," but always left a note. So when he is suddenly gone without one and fails to return, they don't know what to think. They end up in Paris (no spoliers!) and even here the questions of the past cloud the future. I enjoyed the book very much. Much is based on the children's books Madeline and The Red Balloon. I grew up on both and so this topic, which is deeply threaded throughout, was great. I felt the story was honest to how grief and loss both permeate a life and can in some ways restate reality and make us question everything.

Leah and Robert met when she tried to steal a copy of the book The Red Balloon from a book store in Milwaukee. Leah was an impoverished grad student in film studies whose specialty was the movie, The Red Balloon. She knew everything about Lamorisse, the creator of the movie. Robert was a children’s book author and his favorite book about children in Paris was Madeline by Bemelmans. Their interest in Paris became a focal point for their romance. Robert even took Leah to Paris, Wisconsin where she asked him to marry her.

However before they married, Robert promised to take Leah to Paris, France. Twenty years and to children later, the marriage was falling apart. Leah had turned out to be the breadwinner in the family as Robert’s writing career falters. Robert had a habit of disappearing from the family home for periods when he needed his space but he had always left messages promising to return. Then one day Robert left without leaving a message and did not return. He seemed to have vanished without a trace.

After a few months, Leah found that he had bought tickets to Paris for she and her teen daughters before disappearing. So they decided to take the trip in hopes that they would find Robert in Paris. Leah ended up as the part owner of a small store selling only English books. She registered the girls for school and also becomes the caretaker of the children of the nephew of the original owner of the bookstore. All the while Leah and her two daughters searched throughout Paris for Robert.

This book was confusing in the beginning and the character of Robert was shadowy and not as well developed as Leah and her daughters, Daphne and Ellie. I did enjoy it once It became clear why the 3 Americans were living in Paris.