Hello, Book Nerds! Welcome back to Reading Has Ruined My Life or welcome if you are new. As always, my name is Hannah and I am your captain on this journey into my bookcases.
I hope everyone enjoyed Mystery March last month. I had lots of fun curating mystery content all March long, and I’m sad to see it go. But I am happy to focus on different genres once again. And what lucky genre am I talking about today? What book is in the hot seat this week? Well I have a little historical fiction read for you all today.
Please give a warm welcome to The Paris Apartment by Kelly Bowen!
Synopsis time now! As always, a spoiler alert is in order. If you have read any other review on this site then you will know that I love to spoil the entirety of the books I review. This is your one and only warning Also, I have a very brief content warning. There are quick mentions of physical torture in The Paris Apartment. Nothing is ever explicitly described, but if you’re squeamish, just know there is a mention of fingernails being pulled off. Sorry for putting that image into your head, by the way. Now let’s crack in.
In 2017, Aurelia Leclaire learns her late grandmother has left her an apartment in Paris. Now, Aurelia is under the impression that her grandmother never once visited Paris, let alone lived there, but apparently she did. And inside this apartment may as well be a dragon’s hoard. Inside are paintings by many famous artists, couture gowns, opulence and decadence marred only by dust, and hidden secrets; many hidden secrets.
If these walls could talk they would tell Aurelia all about her grandmother’s secret life. It would also tell her about the hardships of living in 1942 Paris when it was occupied by Germany. Estelle Allard, Aurelia’s grandmother, was born with a silver spoon in her mouth. But when the Nazis take over Paris, she’s quick to offer her help to the resistance. With her family’s wealth and her socialite status, she makes her way into the same circles of high-ranking Nazi officials to spy on the bastards and report even the smallest pieces of information she can get from them.
It's dangerous work and she knows it, but she will be damned if she doesn’t do something. So she hides art, keeps allied airmen hidden in one of the secret rooms she has built, and hides the young Jewish girl who lives next door when her family is taken. Though for Aurelia in the present day, it will be quite some time until she learns her grandmother’s secrets. Which she does by teaming up with Gabriel Seymour, an art restorer Aurelia hired to restore and appraise Estelle’s collection.
What neither of them know is their families have a shared history from the war. Between the two of them, they learn their respective family secrets while hoping to find the rightful owners of Estelle’s massive collection. So can they do it? Can they unravel their families secrets and history? And can they find the rightful owner for any of these once hidden masterpieces?
This! Book! Is! Stunning! Prior to reading this, I was kinda in a reading slump. I kept reading books that were arguably not good or I simply wasn’t too into. Then from the darkness came a shining light in the form of The Paris Apartment. I'm lowkey obsessed with that news story from a few years ago about the Paris Time Capsule Apartment, and I've found the news story in book form.
The Paris Apartment is a beautiful piece of historical fiction full of beautiful details. Estelle’s apartment lives rent free in my mind; sans the Nazi propaganda of course. The detail work and enthralling plot made it difficult for me to put the book down. The fast pacing didn’t help with my problem of wanting to read The Paris Apartment in one sitting.
Speaking of the plot, it’s incredible. I won’t lie, the base idea is something that has done many times before. Historical Fiction Readers, I know you can name a plethora of books about a woman spying for the allied forces during World War II. That is nothing new. But Kelly Bowen did a fantastic job at expanding upon the plot by diving deep into the characters of Estelle and Sophie as they are what made this book.
There’s really only one thing I wasn’t a huge fan of. That being when the story focused on Gabriel and Aurelia. This story is told in dual POV; four POVs to be exact. This is very much necessary. All four point of view characters are needed to properly tell this story. But at a certain point, I really didn’t care about the story involving Gabriel and Aurelia. And it’s not because their story isn’t well written, uninteresting, or not needed–it is all of those things–but The Paris Apartment’s main plot takes place in 1942. That’s where all the exciting incidents happen. I wanted that linear story, but was sadly interrupted by the story happening in the modern day.
I’d also argue Gabriel and Aurelia don’t need to be turned into a couple. I don’t really believe their relationship; mainly because they aren’t seen as often seeing as the majority of the story is set in 1942 and not 2017. Also, there’s not enough yearning for me. This issue and the one mentioned above could have been rectified had the author focused on the 2017 storyline more than she did. If I am to care about Gabriel and Aurelia, and their budding relationship, then they should have been showed more.
These issues are minor though, and come down to nothing more than my personal preference. This story is masterfully done and kept me engaged throughout. I will be rereading this book for years to come.
With that, I must bid you all adieu. Thank you very much for joining me today, I will see you all again next week with another new review. If you can’t wait that long then you can always check out my podcast Nothing to See Hear. It stars me and two of my friends as we talk Disney, Scooby-Doo, bad 90s wrestling, haunted houses, and anything and everything; there’s bound to be something you’ll find interesting.
Until next time, stay safe, wash your hands, and read some good books for me.
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