"In Paris With You"

“In Paris With You”

Written by Clémentine Beauvais

Reviewed by Diana Iozzia

“I hear two tambourines pounding faster, shaking and vibrating inside their chests”.

“In Paris With You” is a modern romance told in a poetic, airy style. We are treated to a funny, charming, mysterious, sad, and bittersweet story. This romance is reminiscent of many other more realistic romances that I have enjoyed, like “Once”, “The Last Five Years”, “Where She Went”, “The Light We Lost”, and “Bridges of Madison County”. I have always held a candle for romances in which characters find each other after some time has passed. The “one that got away” theme is prevalent through many of the love stories I have enjoyed. I am also a fan of limited time romances. The chance encounter in which characters only have so little time to reconnect and fall back in love again. For example, in “Where She Went” by Gayle Forman was special for me, because we meet the characters and see their love lost, over the span of twenty-four hours.

When we meet our characters in Clémentine Beauvais’s love story, we are introduced to them by an omniscient first-person narrative. Now, this narrative was an interesting experience for me. It felt a bit strange, in the sense where I felt that we should have eventually found out who this narrator was. Is it Paris personified? Is it just for stylistic purposes? The unseen narrator reminds me of the narration from “Matilda”, by Danny DeVito. Half of the book I read in Danny DeVito’s voice.

Now, there were parts of this book I absolutely fell for. Then, there were parts that were so uncomfortable and disagreeable that I just could not let go of. I absolutely love our character, Tatiana. She is beautiful, kind, interesting, and all around a lovely character. I was interested in her art thesis and fell in love with the artist she is writing her thesis about. She is passionate, but she is ambitious about her career. She does not seem to want this reconnection and romance again. She was only fourteen when she had developed her crush on him. They only crushed on each other as young teens; this was not a crazy, beautiful, epic love story that went wrong. Eugene had kissed her sister at a party and then like teenagers, it ruined everything. As adults, surely you would not think passion and love and epic romance would surface out of the dregs of their young teenager years.

Eugene is another story. At first, I like him, because he’s honest and sad and a bit mixed up currently. But then we constantly experience his lust and craving for Tatiana’s body and her attention. He is so much more interested in her again, and she is just more focused on her career. So much of his side of the story is just lamenting that she could be sleeping with her professor and that she focuses too much on things that are not him. I was so disappointed in his character. I can understand that his feelings may remerge for her, but it is so quick and sweeping and at times, unsettling.

I did love the narrative style, even if the narrator was a bit hokey at times with parentheses, asides, and jokes about the characters. I would not have minded if the narrator did not exist. However, I absolutely love the lyrical prose. There are so many gorgeous lines that sound that they belong in soft ballads.

Personally, I love how this story ended. The ambiguous “perhaps, someday” ending absolutely felt right for this story, although it was bittersweet. This is the type of story that I will look back on and read again, wondering how these characters would eventually live their lives.