The Paris Library

by Janet Skeslien Charles

I loved this book.  I read it by default when I didn’t have another book to read after I didn’t want to finish The One Hundred Years....  This is fiction but based on truth about the American Library in Paris and the people who worked there during WWII.  Odile, the main character, was fictional but her story fit around real events and people. 

As the book opens, it’s 1939 and Odile is 20 years old.  She is excited to have been hired to work at the ALP because she loves books, though her father, especially, thinks she should not be working.  Coworkers include Bitsi who is about Odile’s age; the Directress; Boris; and Margaret, an English volunteer who is married with a young daughter and about Odile's age; plus several others.  Odile’s family includes her parents and her twin brother Rémy.   

The other main character is Lily, Odile’s teen neighbor in Montana, in the 1980s.  Odile has lived in Montana since the war but has mostly been excluded—she married a soldier the town thought would marry another girl and Odile keeps to herself.  Lily is curious about her and decides to do a report on France and interviews Odile.  They become friends.

There is so much to love about this book, and so much to be judgmental about, too, and yet it’s always good to look at one’s self before judging others.  People are not perfect.  They make mistakes.  Emotions get in the way of good judgment.  Just a really good book.

Quote

“People are awkward.  Don’t hold it against them.  You never know what’s in their hearts.”    p. 34 end     
 
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