13 February 2012

The Paris Wife by Paula McLain

The Paris WifeThe Paris Wife by Paula McLain
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I remember reading "The Sun Also Rises" in High School and thinking, what a bunch of a**holes. "The Paris Wife" reinforces my view of these terrible, selfish people. Every character appalled me, even Hadley. Ms. McLain brought the true nature of the scenester artist community to life and it is not a pretty portrait, no matter the era. Some may complain the characters, Hemmingway included, are shallowly drawn, but I went to art school myself and she has these people pretty well pegged. The doom and sadness she created with the slow death of Earnest and Hadley's marriage and the raw pain of having to kill youthful passions in exchange for maturity and responsibility moved me to tears, however I couldn't get past wanting to slap everyone in the entire book, with the exception of Earnest and Hadley's child, Bumby, and the french nanny who raised him.


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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

A book brings you to tears, and you only give it two stars

EM Hum said...

lol - Great point, anonymous! But my tears were that of my own emotions projected into the subject matter. On Goodreads 2 stars means it was okay. I can't give it 3 stars, because that would mean I liked it. To boil it down, I didn't think it was bad, but I didn't enjoy the book at all - hence, "it was okay."