Mona's Eyes begins with a traumatic event where Mona, aged 10, goes temporarily blind. There doesn't seem to be any physical cause once her sight returns but tests are ordered and Mona is taken to see a specialist who suggests psychiatric treatment.

But Mona's beloved grandfather, who Mona calls Dadé, decides that a better use of time would be a weekly trip to an art gallery where he can show her the beauty of the world that she can remember if the blindness returns.

And so begins a look at art through the decades beginning with Botticelli at The Louvre and ending with Soulages at The Pompidou Centre.

I loved this book. As I read I would bring up the particular artwork on my phone and no, it may not be the same but the book forces you to really look at a painting. Mona spends longer and longer looking at the pictures while Dadé asks her what she thinks and gives her a history of the artist.

For some reason, this book reminded me of Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder with artists replacing philosophers. It is certainly an absolutely fascinating novel and I've not read anything quite so intriguing for a while.

Mona and Dadé are extremely likeable characters and it is interesting to watch Mona develop as the months go by. We warch as the bond between them strengthens as Mona begins to question her past family life and refuses to shy away from the hard questions.

Thankyou to Netgalley and Europa Editions for the advance review copy.

I really wanted to love this book. The premise sounded like a truly heartwarming story between a grandfather and his granddaughter. I also really enjoyed Art History courses in school. This book relies heavily on the details and explanations of the art and the artist. It honestly felt more like a textbook used in an Art History lesson at times more than it felt like a novel. It was not what I was expecting. And the age of the granddaughter did not make a whole lot of sense based on her dialogue.

Thanks to NetGalley, Thomas Schlesser, and Europa Editions for allowing me to read a copy of Mona's Eyes in the return of an honest review.

When 10-year-old Mona learns she may go blind, her grandfather Henry resolves to show her his favorite masterpieces. He takes her to see a new piece of art at a Paris museum each Wednesday for 52 weeks. The English translation of this book — originally published in French in 2024 — includes a fold-out dust jacket featuring images of all 52 works of art featured in the story.

<b><u>Mona's Eyes</u></b>
Thomas Schlesser
Publication Date: August 25. 2025

ARC courtesy of Europa Editions and Netgalley

Young Mona is losing her eyesight, for no identifiable organic cause. Instead of taking her to a psychiatrist, her grandfather takes her weekly to the museum to view one iconic piece of art, before she completely goes blind.

Reminiscent of last year's runaway debut, <i>All the Beauty in the World</i>, Thomas Schlesser's latest is a beautiful book of art history, especially if you opt for the hardcover which includes a foldover with the images of the 52 iconic works of art discussed (otherwise, you will need to look them up individually).

As a novel, the premise is thin (depriving the child of medical care?), and the writing is didactic, like you are reading a coffee table book without the big glossy photo reproductions, or attending an art history lecture sans the projected (or PowerPoint) slides.

I think Mona’s Eyes is meant to be taken seriously. Mona, 10 years old, suddenly finds herself suffering from a serious problem with her eyes: occasional bouts of total blindness that has no obvious cause. The book features serious descriptions and interpretations of more than fifty important works of art—paintings and sculpture—that you will find if you are willing to seek them in the magnificent Louvre or the sparkling Musee d’Orsay or the serious funhouse that is the Beaubourg (Pompidou Center). Mona’s near-do-well father has a serious drinking problem, a serious love of wine. His business venture—a seriously quirky retail store selling a seriously weird variety of items—is in serious financial difficulty. Mona’s serious mother is trying to hold the small family together in the face of its serious difficulties: Mona’s inexplicable and dangerous bouts of blindness; husband’s persistent fecklessness. And into this mix comes the worldly and willful, but kind, grandfather (the mother’s father), who decides to employ his own method of “curing” Mona and enlists Mona in keeping his method a secret. And with that Mona is able to cure her father and . . . I finally decided that the book is more a fairytale than a serious work of fiction. But that’s great, isn’t it? It’s the unexpected delight you feel in reading this novel. Yes, read it and seek out those works of art in those three famous museums. Discover whether you can see what grandfather and Mona see when they place themselves in front of these masterpieces and stare at them for long minutes. (The way any work of art should be experienced.) Immerse yourself in the unique adventure of this little girl on the cusp of adolescence, who realizes that she has inner resources she could not have imagined and unlocks in herself a love of beauty and happenstance and all the good things a joyous vision of life can offer.

Thank you Europa Editions for providing an advance copy in galley form for review consideration via NetGalley. Please note: Quotes taken from a galley may change in the final version.
All opinions are my own.

This is a very very different book from anything I have ever read. I highly recommend it if you enjoy art or want to learn more about art (if not, it may not be the best fit).

The premise is the following: Mona, a 10-year-old girl, starts to experience episodes of temporary vision loss. Her grandfather, an art connoisseur, wants his granddaughter to see as much beauty as possible before she loses her vision completely so takes her to the museum once per week to look at a single piece of art together and discuss it. The book is supported by a website (www.monaseyesnovel.com) that lists all 52 pieces of art so you can google them and see the pieces for yourself as you read along.

This book is a mix between fiction and academic art history. It contains enough depth of content to genuinely give someone a solid foundation in art appreciation, but at the same time, this knowledge is presented in a very easy to absorb way. Each chapter is short and is composed of 3 parts: a snapshot of Mona’s personal life, a detailed description of the art piece of the week, and a discussion of the piece between Mona and her grandfather that often delves into the history of the art piece, the life of the artist, and the cultural context of the times.

It's really quite cleverly done but it’s important to go into it knowing that this is not the type of book that you can sit down and binge over a weekend. You’ll want to read a few chapters each day and let the story (and knowledge) seep in slowly over the course of a month or so.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for granting me an advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

I first started reading the Kindle version, but I needed pictures to broaden my understanding of the visual memory I had of earlier works of art and to gain more knowledge of what I had missed in the world of modern art. I resorted to using Google to connect with each work of art described, and this became too time-consuming, so I abandoned the ebook version. My favourite courses of study were in Art History back in the 1950s, and I have visited the Louvre since then. I found the Kindle version, without accompanying pictures, fascinating, so I ordered the hardcover version. Its dust jacket comes with a clever foldout that opens and expands into a poster, where all 52 of the artworks are displayed in colour.

Mona's Eyes has been a huge bestseller in Europe and is now translated into English. The author, Thomas Schlesser, is an Art Historian who covered what I had already learned and remembered, and added to my experience in looking at art by filling in my gaps with his discussions of contemporary artwork. Schlesser explains the 52 works of art in an academic and scholarly manner. This is really a
book on art history disguised as a novel, and he elaborates on each with knowledge and insight, discussing the power of art. The aim is to cherish their beauty and to analyze each for life lessons.

Mona is a ten-year-old girl who recently experienced a temporary loss of vision for a day. She is surrounded by a belief that she will go blind in a year's time. This prediction is not supported by medical tests, and so the doctors urge Mona to visit a psychiatrist to help her overcome the shock.

Her grandfather, Henry, volunteers to bring Mona on weekly visits to a psychiatrist, but instead secretly brings her to the Louvre and other museums. His aim is to give Mona the gift of beauty and to cherish the beauty in her visual memory in case she does go blind. Henry has an ardent knowledge and love for art. The relationship between the generations is emotionally rich. Together, they view a single artwork each Wednesday for a year, while Henry explains and analyzes it, along with the art movements and the artist's life. He provides insight into life lessons and how each artwork relates to
broadening one's mind to being human and to a creative impulse. His explanations are informative, but the form of a lecture. Mona may not fully understand what her grandfather is relaying, but she adds her own intelligent impressions to what she has viewed. The ending was inconclusive.

I loved the hardcover edition of the book. Seeing each artwork while it is being explained kept me fully engaged. Highly recommended to those interested in fine art and/or its history, and who enjoy explanations from a different viewpoint.

Twelve-year-old Mona has just fifty-two weeks left to see the world’s beauty before she loses her eyesight forever. Each Wednesday, her grandfather takes her to a Paris museum, where together they explore fifty-two masterpieces while sharing moments of wonder, sorrow, and discovery. Mona’s Eyes is a novel about art, loss, and the unbreakable bond between a granddaughter and her grandfather.

This story was quite different from what I expected. I thought the art would serve as a backdrop, but it is truly the heart of the novel. Each chapter focuses on a masterpiece and its artist, written with such depth that you could read any chapter on its own as a thoughtful exploration of the artwork.

While Mona’s failing eyesight gives the story its urgency, the real focus is on the art itself. Still, her relationship with her grandfather quietly shapes her character—her subtle growth shows how much these weekly visits mean to her as she navigates both her changing vision and the changes of growing up.

I especially loved the depictions of the museums, which brought back memories of my own time in Paris and mirrored some of my personal reflections there. As an art lover, I found the blend of Mona’s story with these vivid descriptions of art and family deeply moving. 3.5/5

Thanks to Europa Editions and the author for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Available on the 26 August 2025.

#Bookstagram #BookReview #MonasEyes #NetGalley #literaryfiction

This book may be categorized as a novel but it is more of an art history book than fiction. The fifty two chapters representing as many paintings described and discussed in great detail doesn’t leave room for much of a story.

The premise is that a young girl, Mona, has a brief episode of blindness that is a medical mystery. Rather than take her to a psychiatrist to work out her fear of losing her sight, her grandfather substitutes her weekly appointments with trips to the museums of Paris. He wants her to have these great paintings in her head should she inevitably go blind.

Mona is a very precocious character, wise beyond her years. Her relationship with her grandfather is loving but it is also unbelievable. This child’s independence and patience is hard to believe.. As is her attention span and thought process.

I enjoyed the little bit of story in between the tedious and lengthy museum visits but there wasn’t enough of them. Her mother and father were hardly developed. Mona’s friendships should also have had more airtime because of their importance to this budding tween.

The preachy ending seemed to have been the impetus for the story and had it been integrated into the novel it night have been more plausible.

I hope in the final version there are at least photos of the paintings that were described. It might make the book more readable.

The author is an extremely knowledgeable art historian who has written a number of books in his area of expertise. This would have been a fine book as a survey of art and the influence of the artists he chose for Mona to study.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Europe for the opportunity to read this advanced reading copy in exchange for an honest review.

2.5 Stars

This novel is a translation from the French Les Yeux de Mona written by a French art historian.

Ten-year-old Mona has a brief episode of blindness and there is concern that she might suffer permanent vision loss. Her grandfather Henry, whom Mona calls Dadé, is supposed to take her for weekly visits to a psychiatrist but he decides “he would administer a therapy of a totally different kind, a therapy capable of compensating for the ugliness inundating her childhood.” He decides that, each week over the course of a year, he will take her to see a work of art “to lodge in her memory all the art offered in terms of beauty and significance” should she lose her sense of sight. For each of the 52 works, he tells Mona about the artist’s background, discusses artistic techniques, and concludes with the life lesson suggested by that piece.

The novel’s structure is repetitive. Dadé and Mona study a work of art in one of Paris’ galleries and she then applies the lesson learned from the art to her daily life. For instance, a painting by Raphael, Henry claims, instructs that people cultivate detachment, “not being the slave of one’s emotions, and of knowing to keep them at a respectable distance.” In the next chapter, Mona sees her mother’s fear and “reckoning she’d gain nothing from increasing it by expressing her own, she kept it to herself.” Likewise, a painting by Marie-Guillemine Benoist exposes “the demons of segregation” so in the following chapter Mona is inspired to tell a classmate that “’the [school]yard belongs to everyone.’” This structure is repeated 52 times!

The book strains credulity. Has the author ever met a 10-year-old child? In my 30 years of teaching high school, I met some very intelligent students who have gone on to great success, but I never encountered one who was as precocious as Mona. The way she speaks and thinks “about complex readings, learned interpretations, bold decipherments, and hypotheses” suggests a maturity and understanding well beyond her age.

There’s also the issue of how Henry speaks to Mona. Much is made of his “determination to talk to her like an adult,” but his vocabulary is much too sophisticated to be understood even by a precocious child. More than once, Henry senses that, because of “the dreadful complexity of his words,” Mona “couldn’t understand a word of this explanation” but he just plows on. His tone is also overly pedantic. He makes statements like “’this heightened pointillism is similar to the effect of those fragments known as tessellae” and “Whistler’s favorite artist was actually Hokusai, the famous creator of The Great Wave’” (as if Mona would know this Japanese artist) and Goya maintained “’a keen complicity with the great Spanish thinkers, such as Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos and Martin Zapater, who wanted to be free of religious obscurantism’” (as if a 10-year-old would be familiar with Spanish philosophers).

There is no doubt that the author is an intelligent and learned man, but some of his references, via Henry who acts as his mouthpiece, just seem intended to impress readers with his eruditeness. There are statements like “Henry thought of Werner Herzog, the director of the film Aguirre, the Wrath of God, in which the opening shot of Machu Picchu, with its mountains in the mist, was an image worthy of Friedrich or Turner” and “This curious approach . . . had come to him from a Japanese animated movie, My neighbor Totoro, one of Hayao Miyazaki’s marvels” and Vienna in the early 20th century “was promoting the atonal music of Schoenberg, the disruptive architecture of Adolf Loos, the critical journalism of Karl Kraus, and the pictorial folly of Schiele and Kokoschka” and “Henry was thinking of all the artists, immersed in hybrid, intentionally immoral visions, belonging to that tendency dubbed ‘Decadent’: Gustave Moreau and Odilon Redon in France, James Ensor and Fernand Khnopff in Belgium, Max Klinger in Germany.” Is is necessary to drop in names all the time: Degas was “admired by the poets of his time, notably Stéphane Mallarmé and Paul Valéry” and a Rosa Bonheur painting recalls “George Sand’s descriptions in The Devil’s Pool, a novel published in 1846, three years before the success of Plowing in the Nivernais at the Salon”? Do we really need to know that Gustav Klimt “lived at No. 19 on the Berggasse” in Vienna or that the Bazar de l’Hôtel de Ville is at No. 52 Rue de Rivoli in Paris? Henry is able to quote from memory fairly lengthy quotations from Charles Baudelaire, Théophile Gautier, Cézanne, Niki de Saint Phalle, and Louise Bourgeois?

The author also assumes the reader has a certain familiarity with art and its terminology. Each work of art is described, often using terms like “mise en abyme” and “pentimenti” and “barycenter” and “contrapposto pose” and “chevet” and “apsidiole” and “cuisse de nymphe” and “parallelepipeds” and “coronal suture” and “nuagiste” and “alizarin crimson.” I understand a photo of each piece of art will be included in the print text; since I was sent an eARC I had to do an online image search.

The book is marketed to art enthusiasts and fans of literary fiction, so I am the target consumer, but I was disappointed. I’m an art enthusiast: I make a point of going to art galleries in the cities I visit and I enjoy reading art history texts and have taken an art history course. I read primarily literary fiction so I am aware of the qualities of that genre. In this book, however, there is in fact little fiction; there’s only a simple, predictable plot, and the characters are unrealistic and so unrelatable. Literary fiction focuses on themes, but the themes in the novel are not profound. Who would dispute the power of art/beauty to edify and influence? And the lessons Mona learns are just clichés mentioned in the chapter titles: Know yourself and Respect humble folks and Let feelings be expressed and All is but dust and Less is more. The book is an art history tome. If I had approached the book at a leisurely pace as an art history text, I would perhaps have enjoyed it more, but it is marketed as a novel. This hybrid of art history text and fiction does not work for me.

The publisher suggests Life of Pi, The Kite Runner, The Little Paris Bookshop, and The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry as comparable titles. I beg to differ; I enjoyed all those titles, but Mona’s Eyes is not in the same category. This book might appeal to those who loved Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder.  I would not recommend it to anyone looking for a work of fiction with believable characters, a compelling plot, and profound themes.

Calling all Art Enthusiasts! This is like walking through the Louvre Museum with your best friend who knows everything about art.

Mona has just experienced a brief episode of blindness and the doctors don't know why. They don't know if the blindness will return, and if it does, for how long? Mona's parents believe that she needs to see a therapist after what she has experienced. More worried about the return of Mona's blindness, Henry, her Grandfather, decides he will fill her eyes with as much beauty as he can by taking her to the Louvre Museum once a week and teaching her about all of the great artists - under the guise of taking her to "therapy". Mona's parents don't know that she is learning to live again and the time spent with Henry is all she needs.

This book follows a pattern of the daily life of Mona and her weekly visit to the Louvre. I will say, I learned an immense amount about great Western artwork. I looked up all of the paintings as Henry was providing the backstories, artist lives, themes, and what to look for in each one. It was a fascinating read unlike any other.

A special thank you to NetGalley, Thomas Schlesser, and Europa Editions for this eARC in exchange for my honest review.

Delighted to include this title in the August edition of Novel Encounters, my column highlighting the month’s most anticipated fiction for the Books section of Zoomer, Canada’s national lifestyle and culture magazine. (see column and mini-review at link)

I really liked the premise of this book, and thought I would find the grandfather/granddaughter relationship warm and charming. Unfortunately, this was a bit too much of a deep-dive into art history and overly-descriptive.
Thank you, NetGalley, and the publisher for access to this eARC.

If you regret sleeping through Art History 101, here’s your chance to make it up. Not sure if there will be a test or not…
A 10 yo girl experiences a short, but terrifying bout of blindness after which her parents have her seeing a specialist who determines they can find nothing to explain the episode. And due to the trauma, they decide she should see a child psychologist. Her much-loved grandfather decides to covertly intervein by taking Mona, not to the psychologist office every week, but to take her to see wonderous works of art should the blindness return and become permanent.
They set off for the Louve and other Paris museums and talk about a different piece every week for a year. These descriptions & following discussions are actually very interesting though I will tell you that the author has clearly never met a 10 yo when he has her saying things clearly no 10 yo has ever uttered.
Would it have not been just as traumatic if his 18 yo granddaughter had the potential to go blind? And then those discussions may have been a bit more realistic. All of the 52 masterpieces are printed on the dustjacket and, again, the discussion of the pieces is quite fascinating. The family drama going on around the visits is also compelling so if you can handle a 10 yo savant, it’s a good read.

I wanted so much to like Mona’s Eyes. I dove right in and within 3 chapters, I was struck by reality. The first chapter was captivating, but the majority of the book read more like an art history textbook. The 10 year old has the dialog of an adult. The plot is paper thin and distracting from the simple story of a grandfather introducing art to his granddaughter. The descriptive writing of the art pieces will inevitably lead to an online image search. This book would make an excellent resource for anyone interested in classical art. That is, if it had a useful cross-referenced index. Thanks to Netgalley for offering it in exchange for my very honest review. Two stars for the cover.

While I love art history and the idea of the book, I wasn’t enjoying the overly descriptive writing style and finally had to DNF after multiple occasions where the author referred to little girls as being pretty (unnecessary and strange way to describe their looks when you could just provide hair color, eye color, etc) and described one such child as her face having “burlesque expressions”….why are men 🙃

As a French-American anthropology of art scholar who studied art history in France for a year as an undergraduate, I was excited to read this book. I love novels where you simultaneously learn something about history, architecture, or art, so this seemed right up my alley. Unfortunately, the novel did not meet my expectations. The novel tells a story about a girl who temporarily loses her sight and her grandfather's mission to pack her memories with compelling images in case she becomes permanently blind. The family believes he is taking her on weekly trips to see a therapist, when he is actually taking her to museums to study and reflect on a different celebrated painting each week. The story of her everyday life is fused with her grandfather's overly pedantic weekly lectures on the painting of the week, and the girl's unbelievably precocious interpretations. While I found the storyline of her everyday life more interesting, unfortunately, 2/3rd of the book concentrates on the grandfather's weekly painting lectures. While the information provided by the grandfather is well-researched, I found that I would have preferred to simply read an art history book. The vocabulary he uses to talk with a 10-year-old was typically far too sophisticated to be believably understood by a child. And the child was often unbelievably sophisticated in her interpretations. I quickly found myself skimming over these long and tedious painting interpretations to get back to the story of the girl, her family, and her schoolmates. That storyline, which involves an alcoholic father about to go bankrupt, her schoolmates and other characters, was far more compelling. After reading 60% of the book, I finally had to give up on the book (something I have only done a few times in my life). For me, the structure of the book did not work and the interactions between the grandfather and the girl (Mona) were not believable.

What I liked:
All of the art content, Schlesser absolutely knows his stuff and it was amazing to learn so much about each art piece in history and theory.

What didn’t work:
I couldn’t connect to any of the characters I was missing an emotional piece

Mona’s Eyes by Thomas Schlesser is a work in translation from the French by Hildegarde Serle. This is the story of a young girl who experiences a few episodes of momentary blindness and with fear for her long-term vision her family has her undergo treatments. Her grandfather, Dade, decides to take her to museums in France to behold beauty of the finest kind so that if the worst happens she’ll always have this beauty in her mind’s eye. The novel was charming and an enjoyable read. The grandfather and the young girl are both incredible at drawing out what is significant in each work of art. To a large degree, I was able to envision the works as they were described but I would have loved this even more if there were color illustrations included.

#MonasEyes #Netgalley

I had high hopes for this book. The premise is unusual and sounded interesting. It was unusual, that's true. But there were too many ways it fell flat for me to really enjoy it.

This is the story of Mona, a 10-year-old living in Paris. One day, she loses her sight. Then it comes back shortly thereafter. The parents get her to a doctor who runs tests and imaging and can't find a cause. They'll continue to see the doctor periodically, where he begins to use hypnotism to get to the root of Mona's blindness and hopefully prevent recurrences. (There are times Mona loses vision or has visual anomalies but doesn't tell anyone, so it's not totally on the parents, but she is only 10, so.)

One of the suggestions is for her to see a mental health professional. Mona's grandfather says he'll take care of finding her the care she needs. His plan is not mental health help; he decides to take Mona to see one different piece of art work each week so that she can see the beauty in the world even when she is blind. He tells her to lie to her parents so they stay in the dark.

Can I just say that if I wanted to read a textbook about euro-centric art, I would have gotten one. It felt like a way for the author to give art lectures. I found myself rolling my eyes and skipping past pages at a time of description and interpretation.

Some of the things that came out of the mouth of a 10-year-old were amazing. When looking at the back of a painting (it was on an easel, so she was able to look behind at the canvas and wooden stretcher):
"Mona realized that this, too was the /hidden meaning/ of a painting, what also had to be imagined behind the images: it wasn't only about complex readings, learned interpretations, bold decipherments, and hypotheses by the hundreds. No, what was hidden, and should be kept in mind, under the layers of pigment was the banality of the soulless canvas on its stretcher, the disarming simplicity of these objects onto which immortal moments of humanity itself be set down." I'm going to give the benefit of the doubt and say this is just poorly translated.

There are a couple other story lines running through this. Mona's father is an alcoholic whose business is failing. Mona's best friend's parents are getting a divorce and she will be moving away. These were afterthoughts that mostly served to break up the tedium of Mona's grandfather's descriptions and Mona's otherworldly understanding of artwork, not fleshed out and three dimensional. I read them almost as different books, they felt so removed from the museum plot.

My thanks to NetGalley and Europa Editions for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.