This book was so forgettable that I forgot to blog about it. It’s one of the books I bought at Powell’s in Portland, Oregon, back in the beginning of August. The plot sounded like something I would like: a simple tailor in rural France is transformed into a leading couturier when he creates a fabulous wedding dress for a socialite.
I like to read about French fashion, French food and French family life so I thought this would be good. Instead it proved to be a very dull, plodding story of a boring guy with a boring life, who momentarily gets famous and hates it. It does offer a few good scenes about French village life, but there is almost no food at all! And it has a really weird out-of-left-field plot twist at the end that totally ticked me off.
I found it very odd that this book includes a reading group guide. I was shocked that anyone thought it needed one. I looked at some of the questions and they were as trite as the book. Here is one (and I swear I am not making this up):
Nearly every time a character appears on the scene in the novel, their clothing is described. How does the author use clothing to suggest something about a character? What are some of the most memorable, most vividly described outfits in the book?
Whoa, deep. You can find much better writing about French life, French style and French food on the Web. Here are a few places to begin:
Becky Holmes blogs about books at A Book A Week.
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