Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Review: French Lessons by Ellen Sussman

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Title: French Lessons
Author: Ellen Sussman
Publisher: Canvas
Genre: Romance, Contemporary Romance
Format: Paperback
Buy: Amazon | Barnes and Noble | The Book Depository


A single day in Paris changes the lives of three Americans as they each set off to explore the city with a French tutor, learning about language, love, and loss as their lives intersect in surprising ways.

Josie, Riley, and Jeremy have come to the City of Light for different reasons: Josie, a young high school teacher, arrives in hopes of healing a broken heart. Riley, a spirited but lonely expat housewife, struggles to feel connected to her husband and her new country. And Jeremy, the reserved husband of a renowned actress, is accompanying his wife on a film shoot, yet he feels distant from her world.

As they meet with their tutors—Josie with Nico, a sensitive poet; Riley with Phillippe, a shameless flirt; and Jeremy with the consummately beautiful Chantal—each succumbs to unexpected passion and unpredictable adventures. Yet as they traverse Paris’s grand boulevards and intimate, winding streets, they uncover surprising secrets about one another—and come to understand long-buried truths about themselves.


I used to love France and all it's beautiful glory as the city of love and passion but somehow this book ruined it for me. Now, I see France as a beautiful city of disloyalty, cheaters and two timers. When I first read the synopsis of the book, I expected exactly that. LOVE. New found love ignited by French tutors unto their American Students who are lonely, neglected and enraged with the problems of their life.

But I did not get what I expected. What I got was a tragedy that annoyed me, writing that wasn't creative and lacked substance and overall, a load of cheating. Cheating between friends, cheating between a male tutor and someone else's wife, cheating between a female teacher and someones husband, and more cheating. All the cheating and disloyalty can be reality. But honestly, how can this book be about pure love when there's a lot of random cheating going around.

Okay, fine. The book was an okay read. I just don't appreciate the writing style much nor the outlook of love the book is giving out. The book could be something a lot better but instead, I feel like I'm reading the first few drafts of the book. This might be my own fault. I expected too much and got not even a little bit of what I expected, hence the bad rating and a whole lot of bad impressions.


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