Meh. The Paris Apartment feels mostly like melodramatic dithering, but I guess I was somewhat entertained.
Jess needs a place to stay, so she hits up her half brother. When she arrives at his residence, she finds a fancy building with questionable tenants, but no sign of Ben. As she digs deeper and asks around, she starts to realize that all is not as it seems at this apartment building. Dun dun dun!
Having read a few of Lucy Foley's books, I feel like she's really good at building up anticipation. Every moment in this book is so dramatic, with dark shadows and scary sounds at every turn. That's all good, but after a while, it gets to be a bit much, you know? There's no natural ebb and flow in the tone. It's just all high anticipation, all the time.
It doesn't help that every character acts so high-strung and paranoid, even when nothing is happening.
I watched as Nick's friend plucked a sprig of rosemary from one of the bushes, tearing hard to wrench it free. How he crushed it to his nose, inhaled. There was something presumptuous about the gesture. It felt like an act of vandalism.
What the heck. Who attacks a bush just to smell it? And who watches someone do that and calls it "presumptuous"? Reader, if you're able to keep from rolling your eyes, you're a better person than I am.
For a book advertised as a mystery, it sure doesn't feel like one. Jess doesn't so much suss out clues as she bumbles around, pilfering stuff, sticking her foot in her mouth, and just generally acts like an incompetent idiot. The other characters are all unlikable too, though each in their own way. And everyone is smelly, with stale breath and excessive sweat.
After all that exaggerated writing, do the twists deliver? Eh, they seem pretty standard to me for the genre. I wasn't really surprised or shocked. In fact, it feels more ridiculous than anything else.
Still, I was compelled to turn the pages, so I must've been somewhat entertained by all the antics.
Readaraoo Rating: 3 stars
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