I'm on a travel memoir junket at the moment - and this one is quite possibly the worst so far. It's a bunch of Facebook posts and Tweets over the year Eloisa James spent with her family in Paris. The book, well, collection would describe it better, is disjointed and without depth. The only thing I feel when I read it is frustration, because she glosses over things I'd like more detail on, and boredom, because it's all just so random.
Suddenly they're in Paris, suddenly her daughter spots a homeless man with his dog, suddenly her daughter is slapped at school, suddenly her son is sick and will only eat Froot Loops. Yes, that was the order too. It didn't make any sense as a travel memoir. It shouldn't be marketed as such and I'm so glad I only borrowed the book from the library. If I'd spent $27 on it I'd be -really- grumpy.
If you have a short attention span and aren't really interested in learning more about the day-to-day life of a person living in Paris then THIS is the book for you. It's sad since this is the work of a Shakespeare Professor with a NYC university, James got her PhD at Yale and is a published academic and romance fiction author. I really expected more from her, instead I got tripe and who likes tripe???