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The New Internationals
A stunning novel of post-war Paris that interweaves a coming-of-age story, a cross-cultural romance, and a portrait of the international youth at a definitive moment in contemporary history
Paris, 1947. The city, recovering from the Nazi occupation, suffers from an economy in shambles and an unraveled social fabric. Alongside the wary and war-weary population, American GIs and young people from France’s colonies also pack the city. Cecile Rosenbaum, from a bourgeois Jewish family that has lost everything, meets Minette Traoré, a feisty, French-born girl of Senegalese descent, on the bus to a Communist Youth Conference. There, she also meets Sebastien Danxomè, an aspiring architecture student from West Africa, and romance blooms.
Back in Paris, as these young internationals haunt the cafés and jazz clubs of the Latin Quarter, Cecile and Sebastien find their budding love muddied by confused loyalties and unyielding cultural traditions. When Mack Gray, a charming African-American GI, sets his sights on Cecile, her complicated relationship with Sebastien, as well as her fierce dedication to her newfound political ideologies, are pushed to the brink.
Nuanced, powerful, and sharply realized, The New Internationals chronicles the post-war awakening and the young women and men who rose up – and came together – in the beginnings of a vibrant political moment, trying to imagine a better world.
Paris, 1947. The city, recovering from the Nazi occupation, suffers from an economy in shambles and an unraveled social fabric. Alongside the wary and war-weary population, American GIs and young people from France’s colonies also pack the city. Cecile Rosenbaum, from a bourgeois Jewish family that has lost everything, meets Minette Traoré, a feisty, French-born girl of Senegalese descent, on the bus to a Communist Youth Conference. There, she also meets Sebastien Danxomè, an aspiring architecture student from West Africa, and romance blooms.
Back in Paris, as these young internationals haunt the cafés and jazz clubs of the Latin Quarter, Cecile and Sebastien find their budding love muddied by confused loyalties and unyielding cultural traditions. When Mack Gray, a charming African-American GI, sets his sights on Cecile, her complicated relationship with Sebastien, as well as her fierce dedication to her newfound political ideologies, are pushed to the brink.
Nuanced, powerful, and sharply realized, The New Internationals chronicles the post-war awakening and the young women and men who rose up – and came together – in the beginnings of a vibrant political moment, trying to imagine a better world.
299 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 21, 2025
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dnf
January 24, 2025DNFGMTI-Did not finish, gave me the ick 😂
I was not vibing with the writing style and the info dumping in the beginning. But nail in the coffin was the way the women are depicted and treated. The real world is shitty enough and that was a…choice…to make your fictional male character call the female characters a c u next Tuesday, wh*res, and b words in the span of a page. Not to mention the 3 descriptions of breasts….No thanks 🙂↔️
2025 is the year I become less tolerant of cis het male authors
Thanks to NetGalley and grove Atlantic for the eARC.
I was not vibing with the writing style and the info dumping in the beginning. But nail in the coffin was the way the women are depicted and treated. The real world is shitty enough and that was a…choice…to make your fictional male character call the female characters a c u next Tuesday, wh*res, and b words in the span of a page. Not to mention the 3 descriptions of breasts….No thanks 🙂↔️
2025 is the year I become less tolerant of cis het male authors
Thanks to NetGalley and grove Atlantic for the eARC.
February 28, 2025
Loved loved this book! What an incredible homage to a strong and much admired woman. Wright Faladé does a fantastic job of capturing the complexity of human relationships and the research on Dahomey was spectacular and interesting.
February 14, 2025
3.5
I have very conflicted feelings about this book. The historical aspects were clearly well researched and were fascinating. I was sucked into the details of Vichy France, Post-War Paris, and the history of Dahomey.
I also liked the character of Cecile. I found the chapters from her POV to draw me in the most. However, I felt like she deserved better. All of the men in her life mistreated her; from her father and Joel to both Seb and Mac. None of them seemed to really see her and most used her for their own ends. I'm aware the author based this book on his own family's history (I highly recommend reading or listening to his article "The Truth About My Father" in The New Yorker) but I still wished for more for Cecile.
Overall, the book was still compelling, and I think ultimately a love letter from Wright Faladé to his mother.
The narration of the audiobook was well done and the accent work from Jasmin Walker was excellent.
Thank you to NetGalley and RBmedia/Recorded Books for the ARC audiobook of this title in exchange for my honest review.
I have very conflicted feelings about this book. The historical aspects were clearly well researched and were fascinating. I was sucked into the details of Vichy France, Post-War Paris, and the history of Dahomey.
I also liked the character of Cecile. I found the chapters from her POV to draw me in the most. However, I felt like she deserved better. All of the men in her life mistreated her; from her father and Joel to both Seb and Mac. None of them seemed to really see her and most used her for their own ends. I'm aware the author based this book on his own family's history (I highly recommend reading or listening to his article "The Truth About My Father" in The New Yorker) but I still wished for more for Cecile.
Overall, the book was still compelling, and I think ultimately a love letter from Wright Faladé to his mother.
The narration of the audiobook was well done and the accent work from Jasmin Walker was excellent.
Thank you to NetGalley and RBmedia/Recorded Books for the ARC audiobook of this title in exchange for my honest review.
January 21, 2025
Falade writes from a different perspective on post-World War II Paris. The opening chapter explains that Cecile Rosenbaum’s bourgeois parents had enrolled her in a Catholic school before the Germans arrived. The second chapter is set after the war, in May 1947, when Cecile is on a bus traveling to a Communist Youth Conference where she meets Minette Traore, a beautiful black girl whose parents were French and Senegalese. Through Minette, Cecile meets Sebastian “Seb” Danxome, a 22 year old handyman who wished to pursue a career as an architect and was seeking to enroll at Beaux-Arts, a renowned art school. As they embark on a relationship, Cecile learns that Seb’s father, who lived in Dahomey, had sent Seb and his older sister, Jacqueline (“Zansi”), to France to pursue their studies when Seb was only seven and Zansi was nine. They were “viewed as objects of curiosity and treated no better than trained monkeys.” But Zansi’s supple mind and her tireless drive enabled them to survive and flourish in France. Zansi’s mentor helped find Seb an apprenticeship with a village carpenter in Burgundy away from “Nazis bored with Jew-chasing who might take an interest in a rarity like an African boy.”
Seb knew that Zansi would disapprove of his relationship with Cecile because she was White, French, not African, and not Dahomeyan, so he kept the relationship a secret, and ultimately broke it off. Because he could not win back Cecile’s trust without knowing answers to his own questions about his family and obligations, Seb researched his father, an intellectual and a journalist, in the archives. He knew that his father had been raised by priests after his own father’s exile, and that he was a colonial subject and a French citizen of royal heritage but classically educated.
Cecile, still upset that Seb would not publicly claim her as his lover, meets the strikingly handsome black GI, Mack Gay, from Kansas City. In contrast to Seb’s avoidance, Mack immediately referred to Cecile as his “baby.” Although Mack had planned to return to KC after leaving the service. Mack’s mother responded to a picture that he sent of he and Cecile: “Do not bring that girl here. Are you crazy! Across the river, you two ain’t even legal. Cecile’s mother is also disturbed that her daughter “would be so enamored of blacks.” She explained in her journal: “I don’t care that the boy who loves my daughter is black — not one white! I do fear that the world may not be ready to see them together. That the world is wrongheaded matters little if the result is my daughter’s suffering.”
Despite the hostility of family to these inter-racial relationships, the novel charts Cecile’s love for these “maddening black men”: “one American, the other African; one the descendant of slaves, the other of slavers; one light with joy, though enigmatic, the other burdened by prodigious responsibility that he was incapable of meeting.” Falade dramatizes issues of race in post-war Paris, but Cecile’s politics are underdeveloped. Other than wearing a Jewish star as a provocation, and attending some rallies, it is not clear why or if Cecile is attracted to communism or what her political leanings are in a turbulent post-war Paris. Thank you Atlantic Monthly Press and Net Galley for an advanced copy of this novel that transports the reader to volatile post war Paris.
Seb knew that Zansi would disapprove of his relationship with Cecile because she was White, French, not African, and not Dahomeyan, so he kept the relationship a secret, and ultimately broke it off. Because he could not win back Cecile’s trust without knowing answers to his own questions about his family and obligations, Seb researched his father, an intellectual and a journalist, in the archives. He knew that his father had been raised by priests after his own father’s exile, and that he was a colonial subject and a French citizen of royal heritage but classically educated.
Cecile, still upset that Seb would not publicly claim her as his lover, meets the strikingly handsome black GI, Mack Gay, from Kansas City. In contrast to Seb’s avoidance, Mack immediately referred to Cecile as his “baby.” Although Mack had planned to return to KC after leaving the service. Mack’s mother responded to a picture that he sent of he and Cecile: “Do not bring that girl here. Are you crazy! Across the river, you two ain’t even legal. Cecile’s mother is also disturbed that her daughter “would be so enamored of blacks.” She explained in her journal: “I don’t care that the boy who loves my daughter is black — not one white! I do fear that the world may not be ready to see them together. That the world is wrongheaded matters little if the result is my daughter’s suffering.”
Despite the hostility of family to these inter-racial relationships, the novel charts Cecile’s love for these “maddening black men”: “one American, the other African; one the descendant of slaves, the other of slavers; one light with joy, though enigmatic, the other burdened by prodigious responsibility that he was incapable of meeting.” Falade dramatizes issues of race in post-war Paris, but Cecile’s politics are underdeveloped. Other than wearing a Jewish star as a provocation, and attending some rallies, it is not clear why or if Cecile is attracted to communism or what her political leanings are in a turbulent post-war Paris. Thank you Atlantic Monthly Press and Net Galley for an advanced copy of this novel that transports the reader to volatile post war Paris.
March 22, 2025
This novel, set in post-World War II Paris, covers an era of great change in France. The country was still suffering the effects of the war as it opens in 1947. Collaborators were being publicly punished, there were food shortages, and what remained of the Jewish community was mourning for those who had perished under the Nazis. The American army also had a strong presence and there were soldiers everywhere.
Cecile Rosenbaum, a young Jewish woman, lived with her parents in a Parisian suburb. She had been hidden in a Catholic retreat where she attended classes taught by nuns. Her parents survived but her beloved grandmother was arrested and killed by the Nazis, and her grandfather had earlier committed suicide. Cecile works at the Louvre at a job her father finds for her, but she feels disenchanted with her bourgeois life and becomes friendly with Minette, a beautiful mixed-race woman involved with a Communist protest group.
Through Minette she meets Sebastien, a young man from Dahomey, West Africa, who is studying in Paris. They begin a romantic and intimate relationship, though both are confused and intimidated by some of what they see around them. Their relationship is often tension-filled, and as a White woman and Black man, they are scrutinized at every turn.
Cecile also becomes involved with Mack, a Black American soldier stationed in Paris, and through him, begins to experience American Black culture, including music, food, and other touchstones. She quarrels with Sebastien, but for a while, sees both men, then breaks it off with Sebastien. Mack takes on a proprietary role in their relationship, which she both enjoys and resents.
Paris is filled with political tensions, rallies, and confrontations. Cecile is injured during a police action at one of these events and hospitalized. Mack refers to her alternatively as his fiancee and wife. During treatment, it's discovered that Cecile is pregnant.
At this point, the book seems to unravel and become both cliched and unbelievable. It is ultimately unsatisfying.
The earlier chapters are interesting and insightful, and there is vivid description of the settings and events, but the end just...happens.
Cecile Rosenbaum, a young Jewish woman, lived with her parents in a Parisian suburb. She had been hidden in a Catholic retreat where she attended classes taught by nuns. Her parents survived but her beloved grandmother was arrested and killed by the Nazis, and her grandfather had earlier committed suicide. Cecile works at the Louvre at a job her father finds for her, but she feels disenchanted with her bourgeois life and becomes friendly with Minette, a beautiful mixed-race woman involved with a Communist protest group.
Through Minette she meets Sebastien, a young man from Dahomey, West Africa, who is studying in Paris. They begin a romantic and intimate relationship, though both are confused and intimidated by some of what they see around them. Their relationship is often tension-filled, and as a White woman and Black man, they are scrutinized at every turn.
Cecile also becomes involved with Mack, a Black American soldier stationed in Paris, and through him, begins to experience American Black culture, including music, food, and other touchstones. She quarrels with Sebastien, but for a while, sees both men, then breaks it off with Sebastien. Mack takes on a proprietary role in their relationship, which she both enjoys and resents.
Paris is filled with political tensions, rallies, and confrontations. Cecile is injured during a police action at one of these events and hospitalized. Mack refers to her alternatively as his fiancee and wife. During treatment, it's discovered that Cecile is pregnant.
At this point, the book seems to unravel and become both cliched and unbelievable. It is ultimately unsatisfying.
The earlier chapters are interesting and insightful, and there is vivid description of the settings and events, but the end just...happens.
July 31, 2024
David Wright Falade’s “The New Internationals,” which installs its idealistic leftist-minded young principals in post-World War II France when tensions were still running high over its colonialist past in West Africa, will likely prove something of a challenge for not-so-internationally-minded American readers. Not so foreign for me, though, the novel’s concerns, with how I grew up in a military family whose tours included three years in France at a time not too distant from that of the novel’s action.
When, for instance, Cecile, a young white Jew whose grandmother was taken during the Occupation, shows Paris to her newfound friend and lover-to-be Mack, a black American GI with musical inclinations, their walk through the city, including the Champs-Élysées and an area where, Cecil notes, German generals kept their mistresses during the Occupation, had me recalling how my brother and I took a quick stroll along the Champs-Élysées just before our flight back to the States from Orly. And when Mack is confronted by his black commanding officer for having diverted items from the commissary for black-market trading, the military milieu of the transgression was quite familiar to me, with my having frequented commissaries and PXs and the like throughout my childhood. And the novel’s French-Algerian tensions reminded me of the day when the American school I attended was dismissed early for fear of violence.
So as I say, not so foreign for me, the novel’s concerns, though even with my more cosmopolitan background there was still some confusion, as there always is for me in novels having to do with the Occupation, in no small part because of the acronyms for the various factions. Also, the buildup to the novel’s explosive climax, which draws together the principals in a melee of violence, proved a bit tedious for me.
Still, an interesting and compelling look at the postwar period in France, Falade’s book, and especially timely now, with France having just made a gesture of remembrance for African troops shot dead on French army orders in Senegal during World War II.
When, for instance, Cecile, a young white Jew whose grandmother was taken during the Occupation, shows Paris to her newfound friend and lover-to-be Mack, a black American GI with musical inclinations, their walk through the city, including the Champs-Élysées and an area where, Cecil notes, German generals kept their mistresses during the Occupation, had me recalling how my brother and I took a quick stroll along the Champs-Élysées just before our flight back to the States from Orly. And when Mack is confronted by his black commanding officer for having diverted items from the commissary for black-market trading, the military milieu of the transgression was quite familiar to me, with my having frequented commissaries and PXs and the like throughout my childhood. And the novel’s French-Algerian tensions reminded me of the day when the American school I attended was dismissed early for fear of violence.
So as I say, not so foreign for me, the novel’s concerns, though even with my more cosmopolitan background there was still some confusion, as there always is for me in novels having to do with the Occupation, in no small part because of the acronyms for the various factions. Also, the buildup to the novel’s explosive climax, which draws together the principals in a melee of violence, proved a bit tedious for me.
Still, an interesting and compelling look at the postwar period in France, Falade’s book, and especially timely now, with France having just made a gesture of remembrance for African troops shot dead on French army orders in Senegal during World War II.
December 10, 2025
The New Internationals is a vivid, arresting, and deeply human portrait of post-war Paris at a moment when the world was renegotiating identity, politics, culture, and belonging. David Wright Faladé brings together rich historical detail and emotionally resonant storytelling, crafting a narrative that feels both personal and expansive in its exploration of youth, ideology, and awakening.
Cécile Rosenbaum is a compelling protagonist intellectually curious, politically passionate, and shaped by the trauma and resilience of her Jewish childhood during the Nazi occupation. Her connection with Minette, and later with Seb, forms the emotional pulse of the story. Seb, navigating his aspirations in French architecture while reconnecting with his Dahomean roots, brings a powerful counterpoint to Cécile’s journey. Their relationship unfolds with tenderness and tension, capturing the complexities of cross-cultural romance in a city still healing.
Faladé masterfully situates their story within the vibrant currents of international student life: jazz clubs, political conferences, museums, and moments of protest that burst with youthful idealism and, at times, heartbreaking violence. The novel’s atmosphere is richly textured at once romantic, challenging, and politically charged mirroring a generation poised at the dawn of post-colonial movements.
Nuanced and powerfully realized, The New Internationals is perfect for readers of historical fiction seeking emotionally layered characters, cultural depth, and stories that illuminate the intersections of love, identity, and political transformation. It stands out as a thoughtful and compelling contribution to twentieth-century historical literature.
Cécile Rosenbaum is a compelling protagonist intellectually curious, politically passionate, and shaped by the trauma and resilience of her Jewish childhood during the Nazi occupation. Her connection with Minette, and later with Seb, forms the emotional pulse of the story. Seb, navigating his aspirations in French architecture while reconnecting with his Dahomean roots, brings a powerful counterpoint to Cécile’s journey. Their relationship unfolds with tenderness and tension, capturing the complexities of cross-cultural romance in a city still healing.
Faladé masterfully situates their story within the vibrant currents of international student life: jazz clubs, political conferences, museums, and moments of protest that burst with youthful idealism and, at times, heartbreaking violence. The novel’s atmosphere is richly textured at once romantic, challenging, and politically charged mirroring a generation poised at the dawn of post-colonial movements.
Nuanced and powerfully realized, The New Internationals is perfect for readers of historical fiction seeking emotionally layered characters, cultural depth, and stories that illuminate the intersections of love, identity, and political transformation. It stands out as a thoughtful and compelling contribution to twentieth-century historical literature.
February 20, 2025
Audiobook.
Set in the early 1040’s in Paris. Cecile is a white Jew of German descent. She meets Minette, who is of African origins and she introduces Cecile into her world. Cecile meets Seb and they fall for one another. Cecile works at the Louvre and Seb desires to study art at university.
With the occupation, there are many American GI’s stationed around Paris, Mack takes an interest in Cecile and they start spending time together. Mack is a black American and understands what it’s like for Cecile to be ostracised in her own country.
Seb disappears with his studying for exams and then looking into his background and history - his father sent him and his sister to Paris alone.
Suddenly, there are riots, Cecile is worried for Seb and for Mack. Cecile finds herself in the Seine and calls Mack from a cafe to help her, she has a head injury so he takes her to hospital. Mack and Cecile marry and end up in America. Cecile always wonders what happened to Seb, and when she returns to Paris to see her mother she looks out for him but doesn’t find him.
Occasionally difficult as I don’t speak French, so phrases were translated in the story telling but others weren’t so I may have missed some of the story. That said, it was easy listening and engaging. I was interested in the characters although did feel Cecile played her men one against the other!
Emotional, mixed races in the 1940’s was unusual and not always accepted. But there was also the sense of Cecile’s being an outsider as a Jew.
What a shame some intolerances still go on today.
Set in the early 1040’s in Paris. Cecile is a white Jew of German descent. She meets Minette, who is of African origins and she introduces Cecile into her world. Cecile meets Seb and they fall for one another. Cecile works at the Louvre and Seb desires to study art at university.
With the occupation, there are many American GI’s stationed around Paris, Mack takes an interest in Cecile and they start spending time together. Mack is a black American and understands what it’s like for Cecile to be ostracised in her own country.
Seb disappears with his studying for exams and then looking into his background and history - his father sent him and his sister to Paris alone.
Suddenly, there are riots, Cecile is worried for Seb and for Mack. Cecile finds herself in the Seine and calls Mack from a cafe to help her, she has a head injury so he takes her to hospital. Mack and Cecile marry and end up in America. Cecile always wonders what happened to Seb, and when she returns to Paris to see her mother she looks out for him but doesn’t find him.
Occasionally difficult as I don’t speak French, so phrases were translated in the story telling but others weren’t so I may have missed some of the story. That said, it was easy listening and engaging. I was interested in the characters although did feel Cecile played her men one against the other!
Emotional, mixed races in the 1940’s was unusual and not always accepted. But there was also the sense of Cecile’s being an outsider as a Jew.
What a shame some intolerances still go on today.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 5, 2025
The New Internationals explores Paris and the developing culture in the post WWII era through the eyes of a diverse group of young people.
Cecile, a young Jewish girl becomes friends with Minette, a black girl who she meets on a bus headed to a Communist youth conference. The two become friends and through Minette, Cecile meets Seb (Sebastian) who was sent by his father from Africa to France as a young boy along with his sister to study. Seb and Cecile begin dating but Seb knows his sister will not approve of him being with Cecile and keeps their relationship a secret. Meanwhile, Cecile's mother claims she does not have an issue with her daughter dating a black man but is perplexed that the world may not be ready to see the two of them together.
Through the decadently descriptive text, this book transports the reader (listener with the audio version) back in time. The vibrant description of the city brings it to life through the blend of cultures, art and jazz while exploring political and cultural tensions. It is a story of relationships, personal discovery and self-reflection while at the same time focusing on cultural and political ideologies of the era.
I would like to thank RBmedia for the advance release audio version of this novel and Atlantic Monthly Press for the physical copy for review. It was a tremendous opportunity to enjoy this book in both formats.
Cecile, a young Jewish girl becomes friends with Minette, a black girl who she meets on a bus headed to a Communist youth conference. The two become friends and through Minette, Cecile meets Seb (Sebastian) who was sent by his father from Africa to France as a young boy along with his sister to study. Seb and Cecile begin dating but Seb knows his sister will not approve of him being with Cecile and keeps their relationship a secret. Meanwhile, Cecile's mother claims she does not have an issue with her daughter dating a black man but is perplexed that the world may not be ready to see the two of them together.
Through the decadently descriptive text, this book transports the reader (listener with the audio version) back in time. The vibrant description of the city brings it to life through the blend of cultures, art and jazz while exploring political and cultural tensions. It is a story of relationships, personal discovery and self-reflection while at the same time focusing on cultural and political ideologies of the era.
I would like to thank RBmedia for the advance release audio version of this novel and Atlantic Monthly Press for the physical copy for review. It was a tremendous opportunity to enjoy this book in both formats.
February 22, 2025
I read this book as part of the annual reading challenge. It was the only book on the list I found interesting, and then after being pulled into Cecile’s story, I was left wholly unsatisfied with the ending. None of the choices made post-protest/scuffle scene made any sense. To me it seemed like everyone made theirselves “settle” rather than find hope or meaning.
Also, I’d like to say as a mother of an adopted child, it frankly made me angry that Cecille didn’t tell Seb he had a child. I understand it was a different time, different circumstances, different cultures, but come on! The man lost his only known child in child birthing!
Too many loose ends that just dangle like. Shoelaces rather than like the ribbon curls of hope on balloon ties is all I can say. Annoys me.
Also, I’d like to say as a mother of an adopted child, it frankly made me angry that Cecille didn’t tell Seb he had a child. I understand it was a different time, different circumstances, different cultures, but come on! The man lost his only known child in child birthing!
Too many loose ends that just dangle like. Shoelaces rather than like the ribbon curls of hope on balloon ties is all I can say. Annoys me.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 8, 2025
The New Internationals chronicles Paris during the post war era through the eyes of four individuals. Cecile Rosenbaum, is from a Jewish family that lost everything, meets Minette Traoré, a French girl with Senegalese decent, meet on the way to a Communist Youth Conference. There they meet Sebastien Danxomè from West Africa. They meet Mack Gray, an African American GI. Relationships and ideals are tested and questions as these four grow in a post war world.
The New Internationals was a good story full of nuance and a great look into a colorful and powerful era.
Thank you, NetGalley & Grove Atlantic for the ARC. #TheNewInternationals #NetGalley.
The New Internationals was a good story full of nuance and a great look into a colorful and powerful era.
Thank you, NetGalley & Grove Atlantic for the ARC. #TheNewInternationals #NetGalley.
February 28, 2025
This book was a historical fiction story of a young Jewish woman after WWII. She has two significant relationships, both with black men; one from Africa and one a solider from America. The story is shows how she is in love with one but chooses the other. I liked the writing that shows the struggle she felt loving who she loves. She knows who she is at a young age, but doesn’t even realize it. This quality is what draws these men to her. The story was hard to follow at times on audio. After trying to listen to a few historical fiction books on audio I prefer reading the physical copy better.
June 29, 2025
Thank you NetGalley and RBmedia for the ARC of this audiobook for my honest review
It was a bit of a slow book to get into for me but once I did I was thoroughly invested. It probably didn’t follow the path I necessarily wanted it to follow but I can see the importance of why it did. The characters were awesome and i liked how it could be slow but interesting but also high stakes , stressful and it flows just as well. The writing was so well done for them to even bring someone who was losing interest in the beginning that into the lives of some kids. I recommend.
It was a bit of a slow book to get into for me but once I did I was thoroughly invested. It probably didn’t follow the path I necessarily wanted it to follow but I can see the importance of why it did. The characters were awesome and i liked how it could be slow but interesting but also high stakes , stressful and it flows just as well. The writing was so well done for them to even bring someone who was losing interest in the beginning that into the lives of some kids. I recommend.
July 21, 2025
This was written so well, showing so many perspectives into Vichy France and Post-WW2 Paris, and the struggle of how to identify across political/ethnic/national/cultural/ideological divides.
“Maybe Cecile chased after others’ stories, their grain and color and detail, to replenish the desert spaces in her own story, to substitute for the things she would rather forget.”
I would only take off a half star or so because I wished for Cecile to do more for herself, but seeing as this is more a memoir, it is more accurate and honest.
“Maybe Cecile chased after others’ stories, their grain and color and detail, to replenish the desert spaces in her own story, to substitute for the things she would rather forget.”
I would only take off a half star or so because I wished for Cecile to do more for herself, but seeing as this is more a memoir, it is more accurate and honest.
October 20, 2025
Different cultures coming together and clashing after WW2 in Paris, that's what makes this story special. A very unique part of history is explored here! Be sure to listen to the author being interviewed by MPR to learn how his personal life story fits into the fiction of this book, fascinating! I also loved the mother-daughter relationship chapters at the end.
March 17, 2025
Very interesting theme, but I was a bit disappointed in the execution.
It felt like a book that was written over a very long time and was consequently a bit disjointed.
I love the author though.
The article "Mixeded" in the New Yorker was fantastic.
It felt like a book that was written over a very long time and was consequently a bit disjointed.
I love the author though.
The article "Mixeded" in the New Yorker was fantastic.
Read
February 21, 2025DNF.
March 17, 2025
Language warning
did-not-finish
May 18, 2025Abandoned for now. Just couldn’t get into it. Maybe I’ll try again later
June 13, 2025
WAS THERE A POINT TO THIS HORRIBLE BOOK?? The young people in post-war Paris profess to want to create a better world, but all of them give up their principles and do nothing. Kristi & Abby Tabby
December 29, 2025
Fabulous characters. A good plot. I really like this author
July 30, 2025
read this one on paper! been trying to do both paper & kindle books if you guys couldn’t tell lol. wanted to read this as part of the reading goal- it really stuck out to me! I enjoyed it a lot! 3 stars because the characters made me ANGRY
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews