The Paris Hours Review

By Alex George

Rating: 4/5

One day in the City of Lights. One night in search of lost time.

Paris between the wars teems with artists, writers, and musicians, a glittering crucible of genius. But amidst the dazzling creativity of the city’s most famous citizens, four regular people are each searching for something they’ve lost.

Camille was the maid of Marcel Proust, and she has a secret: when she was asked to burn her employer’s notebooks, she saved one for herself. Now she is desperate to find it before her betrayal is revealed. Souren, an Armenian refugee, performs puppet shows for children that are nothing like the fairy tales they expect. Lovesick artist Guillaume is down on his luck and running from a debt he cannot repay—but when Gertrude Stein walks into his studio, he wonders if this is the day everything could change. And Jean-Paul is a journalist who tells other people’s stories, because his own is too painful to tell. When the quartet’s paths finally cross in an unforgettable climax, each discovers if they will find what they are looking for.

Told over the course of a single day in 1927, The Paris Hours takes four ordinary people whose stories, told together, are as extraordinary as the glorious city they inhabit.

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The Paris Hours is about 4 strangers whose lives are ultimately changed within a 24 hour period. A beautiful story capturing how our smallest actions and choices affect others in more ways than we can even begin to fathom.

Held on a day post-war in France in the 1920s, we get short snippets of each of the characters’ points of view during their present and past. We follow a journalist, a painter, a maid, and a refugee. Living their normal life, each of them has a story and a past. However, one day each of them will end up at the same place at the same time. But their reasons why are all different.

I really enjoyed this book. It was a different genre than I’ve been reading lately so it was a good chance to switch things up. Historical fiction has become a genre that I’ve started to really enjoy. The pages of this book flowed really well. It helped that each of the chapters were mostly on the shorter side, we were constantly jumping between the different characters and learning about their lives. This helped keep the pace up and led me to want to know more about what was going on. I was captivated by the characters’ lives, their past, and their story.

It reminded me of The Age of Light by Whitney Scharer based on the descriptions of Paris, which was set around this time as well. As well as The Lost Roses, with some of the actions and experiences, the characters went through. I was also vaguely reminded of how Ellen Hopkins creates her story like Traffick and Tricks. Those had characters that weren’t connected or related to one another, yet their actions affected one another.

Overall, this book is beautifully written filled with genuine characters that remind us how all our lives are entwined together. The smallest of actions can impact, change, or define each other’s lives in more ways than we’ll ever know.