I tried, really, I did. I read over 25% of this book before finally giving in and giving up. I just couldn't get into it no matter how much I hoped I would.
I got this book when I was in France last November, although I don't remember why I picked it. It's a story about an apartment building in Paris; the tenants are all very upper-class bourgeois families, and there's a widow who is the concierge. She is much more intelligent than she lets on out of fear of breaking the social stereotypes of how a concierge should be. The novel goes back and forth between her and a 12 year old girl, very precocious, who lives in one of the apartments.
The girl has decided that life is ridiculous and that all adults are just lying to themselves, so she's going to kill herself on her 13th birthday. And despite this setup I just didn't really care about either person or what she had to say. I'm sure at some point the two get to know each other, and I'm sure at some point the older woman shows the girl something about life she's never seen before. But, yeah, I just couldn't sit through it to find out.
Oh gracious, a 13 year old who is going to kill herself and you put the book down? That's some crappy writing right there. Spread the word to all, that author must suck.
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