Title: All the Flowers in Paris
Author: Sarah Jio
Release Date: August 13, 2019
Length: 240 pages
Genre: Historical Fiction
****My Review****
All the Flowers in Paris by Sarah Jio
From the day we are born, we start to learn. We learn to walk, talk, read and write, to judge people and situations. We also learn to receive and give love, attention, respect, and gratitude, to avoid evil. But what should we learn from wars? If there anything useful when the claws of evil will wrap around an entire city, around an entire country, and your only mistake is that you were born at the wrong time with a yellow star on your forehead?
The war is in full swing, the occupying boot is trampling Paris. The same Paris in which, fifty years after the war, a young girl wakes up from a coma after a serious accident, knowing nothing about herself and her past. Paris, the city of love, light, and art, the city of fine cheese and even finer wine, will be conveyed by two women in a completely different way.
Céline is a widow and mother of a beautiful, very clever little girl, Cosi, and also the owner of the most famous flower shop in Paris. But she lives or rather tries to survive in Paris during WWII. After her fiancée and father are swept up in the maelstrom of war, Celine is forced to live on 18 Clare Street. She must survive ten months of captivity.
Caroline in 2007 is staring her new life in this new, modern Paris. Discovering an old room in her apartment at 18 Rue Claire, she will find a box of letters addressed to Luc. One phone call will open the doors to the past. Moreover, it will reveal long-kept secrets and bring to light the painful truth about the history of this apartment and their close connection. Will these revelations bring Caroline back to life and set her on the right path?
Will Caroline regain her lost memory? How are the two women’s stories connected? Will Celine and Cosi be saved?
The rest of the story will answer all these questions that run through our minds while reading this book.
I enjoyed Sarah’s writing. The writing style is as usual – fluid and vivid, like part of a movie script. I liked the story of the past, as is the case with almost all such historical dramas. But what makes this book a little different from the others is the emphasis placed on telling the story from the present.
It was interesting to read about how each period has its own story. As every generation and every time leave their mark on the places where they spent part of their lives, whether we want to admit it or not, they influence us by projecting associations, memories, and emotions about something that once happened right here, between these walls within which we find ourselves today. Well, that’s exactly what All the Flowers in Paris by Sarah Jio is like.
The only thing that I found a bit limp and unstable is Caroline’s character. Some of her actions were very incomprehensible to me, thoughtless, somehow I didn’t quite manage to connect with her character, but that doesn’t make the book bad. Celine, on the other hand, really left a wonderful impression on me, such a nice, self-sacrificing and tame character – you just can’t help but like her.
All the Flowers in Paris by Sarah Jio is so well put together, and so real. Two times, two destinies, two lotuses struggling to feel the kisses of the golden sun are seamlessly intertwined. A lot of pain, a huge struggle, a strong will, pride, principles, rape, losses, and sacrifices.
So many characters are closely related, yet distant, so deep insights and wisdom. Make All the Flowers in Paris by Sarah Jio next on your TBR list and enjoy discovering how the most important things in life are gratitude, forgiveness, and love.
This sounds like a good one and I like reading dual timelines like this. Great review!