I had never heard of this book, The Little Paris Bookshop, by Nina George, when I picked it up and added it to my growing stack of books that I was purchasing at B&N with a generous Christmas gift card. I bought it on the basis of the back cover description:
Monsieur Perdu is a literary apothecary. From his floating bookstore in a barge on the Seine, he prescribes novels for the hardships of life. Using his intuitive feel for the exact book a reader needs, Perdu mends broken hearts and souls. The only person he can’t seem to heal is himself; he’s still haunted by heartbreak after his great love disappeared. She left him with only a letter that he has never opened…
The description goes on for another paragraph or so, but honestly they had me at “literary apothecary” and “floating bookstore.” Just stop. Take my money.
Reading this book was a little bit of a lesson in bait and switch for me. Surprisingly enough, I didn’t like this book…like, at all. The idea of it is so, so good, but about a third of the way in, I was completely disappointed, and I could hardly stand it.
The majority of my letdown centers around the protagonist, Jean Perdu, who basically turns out to be a putz. That line from above: “…a letter that he has never opened,”… Well, I just lazily glazed over that in making my decision to purchase and read this book, being blinded by the idea of a cozy, floating book clinic, but that point became infuriating to me as the plot progressed. Perdu is the apothecary, but he’s the one who needs healing (…and honestly, if I was his apothecary, a good kick in the pants). I probably could have endured Perdu and his simpering moody quirks with more patience if I had any enthusiasm for some of the other characters…but I didn’t. I didn’t like or relate to any of them.
Aside from the glaring lack of any good, admirable characters, I felt the plot was also a bit of a mess. Without giving away any spoilers, Perdu ends up taking a physical and emotional journey on his barge, and I struggled throughout it with his stops and detours and the very vague points I think the author was trying to make by them. The plot meandered, ironically like a barge, through the waters of Perdu’s angst, insecurities, and disappointments without ever satisfying this reader with anything that looked like real healing or redemption.
I was just so over Perdu and his self-pity and stagnant intentions that I raced through the last third of the book just to see how it ended. The only satisfaction I had at the conclusion was that it did, indeed, end, and I could start my next, hopefully better, read.
While I’m not alone in my opinion of The Little Paris Bookshop, there are plenty who seemed to like this book and champion Perdu and his odd journey. Nina George isn’t a horrible writer. The prose was well crafted, and I did jot down a few quaint quotes into my literature journal. However, I just can’t bring myself to prescribe (Ha! See what I did there?) this novel to anyone.