Lucy Foley studied English literature at Durham University and University College London and worked for several years as a fiction editor in the publishing industry. She is the author of five novels, including The Guest List and The Hunting Party. She lives in London.
Jess needs a fresh start. She's broke and alone, and she's just left her job under less than ideal circumstances. Her half-brother Ben didn't sound thrilled when she asked if she could crash with him for a bit, but he didn't say no, and surely everything will look better from Paris. Only when she shows up—to find a very nice apartment, could Ben have afforded this?—he's not there. The longer Ben stays missing, the more Jess starts to dig into her brother's situation, and the more questions she has. Ben's neighbors are an eclectic bunch, and not particularly friendly. Jess may have come to Paris to escape her past, but it's starting to look like it's Ben's future that's in question. The socialite—The nice guy—The alcoholic—The girl on the verge—The concierge. Everyone's a neighbor. Everyone's a suspect. And everyone knows something they're not telling.
The novel's structure is inventive—we alternate first person points of view between main character and amateur sleuth Jess, and the neighbors of this apartment. Unfortunately, because of this fractured narrative style, I feel like we don't feel connected to any one character, and thus the story as a whole. I personally was annoyed by Jess's narration, as she didn't feel like a fully developed character, much less a likable one. I found myself more intrigued by the suspects, which was a weird feeling, because I don't like knowing that I was more interested in the people who may or may not have killed someone. While the cast of characters had the potential to be developed in an interesting way, I felt like each of their depictions fell short, which led to a very distant and unmoored reading experience.
I couldn't understand why this book took place in Paris. I took French for all four years in high school, so I'm always intrigued by books that take place in France, or that have elements of the French culture incorporated into them. I could not, for the life of me, determine why this story had to take place in Paris. Nothing in the novel felt like it couldn't have happened in Boston or Los Angeles, or some other cosmopolitan city. My questions about the setting were often offset by the question of pacing. I felt like the entire first 75% of the novel dragged, and that the ending was beyond rushed. I couldn't stop from wondering why the details were revealed in the way they were, because I didn't feel like it made the most sense for the story. The haphazard pacing, on top of the question of setting, led to a frustratingly unmoored reading experience.
The mystery itself was not very compelling. Jess is unable to get any of the neighbors to open up to her, and instead takes on the role of a quivering schoolgirl when trying to question them. Even though Jess and Ben didn't grow up close to one another, Jess often references how close she is to her brother, or how close she'd like to be, and her investigative skills did not reflect her supposed determination to find him. At one point, I thought to myself, "I will only be surprised if this one thing happens"—that one thing did happen, but I wasn't as surprised by it as I 'd hoped, because I'd already guessed that it would happen. Overall, the mystery was lukewarm and predictable, and I felt like I didn't leave the novel with any type of "aha" moment to celebrate in.
Also, I could not wrap my mind around how this apartment was set up—were there seriously no other tenants that saw or heard anything? Were there any other tenants, period? And, what about the cat? How did Theo get out of jail? Why couldn't Sophie just tell Jess what happened earlier? And was the concierge okay? Why did we never get her name? So many questions went unanswered by the end.
All-in-all, I can see how The Paris Apartment is an enjoyable read for those who may not want to ask themselves a lot of questions about what they're reading. That's totally fine! I just find that, when I have a lot of questions that arise during a book with slow pacing, it just isn't the fit for me.
*This review can also be found on my Goodreads page*
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