Book #1

The Paris Wife by Paula McLain
314 pages

This book has been on my to-read list for quite some time now. I think it was on the best-of some lists a few years back. It also is about Paris and has a nice-looking cover, so I'm in!

Hadley is an almost-30-year-old single woman who thinks there is no hope for her to ever find anyone to love. She falls in love with an unknown writer, Ernest Hemingway. They embark on a marriage and a journey that takes them overseas as Ernest begins some of his first important pieces of work.

I love the descriptions of post-war Paris, especially her descriptions about the clothes, booze and flappers at the parties they attended. I did not love the love story between Hadley and Hem, as it seemed, even from the first few pages, he was bad news for her.

If you're looking for a strong female character, Hadley is not it. I was frustrated with her throughout many chapters of the books. But real life is sometimes messier than fiction, and I will give her that benefit of the doubt considering she was, in fact, a real person, making real-life choices!

Overall, I didn't hate this book, but I certainly didn't love it either.

Next up: Kate: The Future Queen by Katie Nicholl