Paris Never Leaves You Review

Author: Ellen Feldman

Genre: Historical Fiction

Publisher: St. Martins Press

Release Date: Aug. 4, 2020

Purchase Links: Amazon  Barnes & Noble

My Rating: 3 Secret Hearts

Many thanks to St. Martins Press for an arc of this book.

(Synopsis & Author Bio following review.)

Review:

Can you ever really leave your past behind?  Do secrets ever remain hidden forever?  Charlotte, a young widow, made hard choices in order to survive during her and her young daughter's time living in an occupied France during WWII.  Alternating between past and present, Paris Never Leaves You is Charlotte's and Vivenne's story making their way in present day New York during the 1950's.  Now age fourteen, Viv is asking questions about the father she never knew and their time living in occupied Paris.  As Charlotte's memories of that time haunt her, readers learn about the dark time period and what a young widow did to assure her and her daughter's survival.  She struggles with how to answer her daughter's questions while still guarding the secrets she carries.  Charlotte fled Paris leaving everything and everyone behind her.  Will she lose everything she's worked for if the truth comes out?

Paris Never Leaves You is a good historical read featuring people who consider themselves survivors, not victims.  The transition between time periods is well-defined and easy to follow.  The plight of the people moved to liberation camps for minor offences evokes empathy as does their journey to a new land and life.  I had a difficult time fully connecting with the main characters.  I wanted to feel more sympathy for Charlotte and her dilemma, but I couldn't find it.  I could sympathize with her situation, but never connected with her emotionally.  The introduction of some characters later in the story broke my concentration making for a bit of a bumpy read.  I think it's probably one of those cases of "it's me, not the book".  Ultimately, Paris Never Leaves You is a story of survival, sacrifice, choices, what you can live with and what you can't.  I encourage fans of historical fiction to give this one a shot!  

Synopsis:

Living through WWII working in a Paris bookstore with her young daughter, Vivi, and fighting for her life, Charlotte is no victim, she is a survivor. But can she survive the next chapter of her life?

Alternating between wartime Paris and 1950s New York publishing, Paris Never Leaves You is an extraordinary story of resilience, love, and impossible choices, exploring how survival never comes without a cost.

The war is over, but the past is never past.

Ellen Feldman, a 2009 Guggenheim fellow, is the author of Scottsboro, The Boy Who Loved Anne Frank, and Lucy. She writes both fiction and social history, and has published articles on the history of divorce, plastic surgery, Halloween, the Normandie, and many other topics, as well as numerous book reviews. She has also lectured extensively around the country and in Germany and England, and is a sought-after speaker to reading groups both in person and by telephone.
She grew up in northern New Jersey and attended Bryn Mawr College, from which she holds a B.A. and an M.A. in modern history. After further graduate studies in history at Columbia University, she worked for a New York publishing house.
She lives in New York City and East Hampton, New York, with her husband and Cairn terrier named Lucy.