The Paris Apartment: A Novel

Ich mochte die düstere Atmosphäre dieses Buches, was mal ein ganz anderes Bild von Paris zeichnet, und die Themen rund um Klasse und Macht, die sich in dem Aufbau der Apartments in Montmartre mit ihren chambres de bonne und separaten Servicetreppen wiederspiegeln. Leider passiert zeitweise wenig spannendes, und das Ende war mir zu überstürzt.

1,75 ⭐️ Well where do I begin.. I loved the guest list by Lucy foley so I picked this up and was excited. It didn’t go well, let me tell you. The first 2/3 were DRAGGING, it was so slow and so many unnecessary things were happening. So many descriptions and situations that added nothing to the outcome, the book or the fun of reading it (which there was very little). Up until this point it was very slow (which is not my liking but not per se bad) But then a very unnecessary and confusing sex scene was sprinkled in (after another attraction to a man which was very confusing too). So you tell me, this girl is searching for her brother, absolutely panicking, everything seems weird and freaks her out and she was thinking like „hmm yea very odd but this man is very attractive“ and „yes I found out a very disturbing detail about some girls lives, maybe this is the moment to have sex with a stranger“ what the hell did I read there.. the most sad thing is: the plot itself and the mystery were very interesting and could have led to a perfect book (of film in my opinion). But the execution was so poor, that even the really good idea couldn’t make this whole thing enjoyable.

Boring but easy to read

To be honest, I expected more suspense and less foreseeable plot twists. The plot isn't bad or totally uninteresting, but nothing really important happens either. The whole story seems a bit superficial and, probably because of the FMC, quite fake and foreseeable. Additionally, I really don't like the FMC and find her horribly annoying as well as self-pitying. The other characters are alright, if a bit sketchy, but no one truly stands out either. However, I love that the novel is told from different POVs and switches between timelines. Also, Foley's writing is easy to understand and read.

Das Buch braucht etwas Zeit um an Fahrt zu gewinnen aber im Endeffekt konnte mich das Setting ziemlich überzeugen. Sehr gelungen fand ich dass die Perspektive ständig wechselt und man die Geschichte durch die Augen der verschiedenen Charaktere liest. Gegen Ende dachte ich dann ich hätte das Buch durchschaut aber die letzten Twists haben mich dann echt überrascht!

spannender verstrickter plot, angenehmer schreibstil, mochte die verschiedenen perspektiven der charaktere :)

3.5 stars🌟

The audiobook for this was REALLY good! Highly recommend! It has a full cast, and all of them do such a great job! However, I feel like I had the same problem with this book that I also had with the Guest List. Foley writes character-driven thrillers, and the issue I have with that is that I often don't like the characters in thrillers. Usually, they are pretty unlikable, and I feel like a character-driven thriller only works if you have very strong feelings towards the characters, either positive or negative ones. However, I just felt kind of meh about it, which was really disappointing. The book did not really captivate me as much, and in the end, I did not really care for the characters like I thought I would, sadly.

I really struggled through this book. I mean, the story itself was actually not too bad but I just really had troubles listening to the audio and following along. I just kind of lost my interest in it by the half way point (if not earlier). In the future, I will definitely try and pick up the physical books by Lucy Foley instead! Overall, I can recommend the story if you like thrillers that make you question the intentions of every single character. For me this was however just a 2,5 star book for the above mentioned reasons.

So eerie, so creepy. When Jess arrives in Paris to visit her brother, he has disappeared. A spooky voice message is all she has - but since he left his keys and wallet, Jess can't believe he left voluntarily. Everybody in the house seems suspicious, she feels watched. Something is very, very wrong in this house. A gripping thriller with multiple POVs. I just love everything Lucy Foley writes!

I had to make myself finish this book. Only after like 65% the story got at least a tiny bit interesting. Mainly predictable, the writing style isn’t really for me nor my personal preferences (I-perspective ewwww). Oh als that Theranos reference literally made me knock it down from maybe three to definitely two stars