Title: PS From Paris (Previously called Elle & Lui )
Author: Marc Levy (Translated by Sam Taylor from French to English)
Publication Date: September 2017 (US Edition, Kindle First program)
My Grade: B-
I thought the idea of the story sounded interesting, so when I saw it on the Kindle First list for August, I decided to choose it. For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, Kindle First is a benefit of the Amazon Prime Account where you are given a selection of six books to choose one book to get free each month before its released to the general public on the site. I’ve gotten a few good books this way. I got PS From Paris during the August books, and it was released earlier this month so if you are interested it is on Amazon now. These often show up in Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited program for the first few months.
Back to the book. The book is actually a sequel to a book I’ve never read. The book, whose title I forget at the moment, was made into a Reese Witherspoon film called Just Like Heaven. The connection was another reason I choose to read it. Its been awhile since I’ve seen the movie, but I remember the basic plot of it.
PS From Paris takes on the story of Paul, Arthur (the lead male character in the first book)’s best friend. Paul had moved to Paris after writing his first novel, which was based on the story of his best friend and his wife. He wasn’t that comfortable with the low-key fame he was getting so he went to Paris to get away from it, and write other books. Since then he’s found he has an amazing following in South Korea. He has also been having a long-distance relationship of sorts with his translator, Kyong. Arthur, who thinks this relationship is a bit of a bad idea, ends up setting him up with a date through a dating site. There he meets Mia, thinking she is there to talk to him as an architect which makes things very awkward at first. But then it becomes an interesting friendship. This being a romance, its typically predictable where this will end up.
The novel has a few clichés, and I think there are some background stories that could be fleshed out, but overall it was an enjoyable read. The translation (as the book was written originally in French) may have not crossed over some of the flow of the book that you might find in a native language, but I rarely found anything choppy to indicate that it was a poor translation. I have the first book on my wish list for a later purchase as I’m interesting in other writing by Mr. Levy, but at the same time I’m not driven to read it right this minute.
My only issue is I feel the end was rather rushed, and the book could have used a better sense of timing for each of the acts so to speak. However, like I said, it was enjoyable, there weren’t any characters that I despised, and while I wasn’t particularly attached to either of the main characters, I found them to be tolerable.
Sokorra Lewis 