Partial Review of The Little Paris Bookshop

I have to start this review with the fact that I only made it through 25% of the book before I decided to end it.

In the first 25% I was slightly charmed by the inhabitants of an apartment building in Paris. I was slightly drawn into the past love life of the main character, Monsieur Perdu, and I was extremely delighted by the idea of a bookshop on a boat, on the Seine, where the shop owner prescribes you the correct book to read for the moment of life that you are in.

Here is the description from Amazon:

Monsieur Perdu can prescribe the perfect book for a broken heart. But can he fix his own?
 
Monsieur Perdu calls himself a literary apothecary. From his floating bookstore in a barge on the Seine, he prescribes novels for the hardships of life. Using his intuitive feel for the exact book a reader needs, Perdu mends broken hearts and souls. The only person he can’t seem to heal through literature is himself; he’s still haunted by heartbreak after his great love disappeared. She left him with only a letter, which he has never opened.

After Perdu is finally tempted to read the letter, he hauls anchor and departs on a mission to the south of France, hoping to make peace with his loss and discover the end of the story. Joined by a bestselling but blocked author and a lovelorn Italian chef, Perdu travels along the country’s rivers, dispensing his wisdom and his books, showing that the literary world can take the human soul on a journey to heal itself.

Internationally bestselling and filled with warmth and adventure, The Little Paris Bookshop is a love letter to books, meant for anyone who believes in the power of stories to shape people’s lives.

The issue with this book is that I never truly cared about anyone, except maybe the neighbor Catherine. Everyone seemed so surface, like a quick caricature, and I had no interest in following their story more. Even Monsieur Perdu’s great, lost love seemed annoying to me.

So 25% of the way through, Monsieur Perdu jumped on his boat, the author (if you read this, you’ll meet him) jumped on too, and off they went down the Seine… and there I stopped. I just didn’t care to go on.

After, I did read a few other reviews on Goodreads that describe more of what happened, and those readers shared that they were just as bored as I was.

Sometimes you just can’t finish a book, and this one I didn’t.

If you are still interested in this story, and you read it, please let me know your thoughts. Would love to know if I should give it another chance.