This book was very strange. It was so boring until it wasn’t and then had very random, serious, sudden events that tried to bring the plot back to life. I did not really enjoy this book.

Four stars for being expertly plotted and well-written and, most importantly, for doing what no book has done in a very long time: successfully and mindlessly drawing me into a fictional world. Not ordinarily my style of reading, but I thoroughly enjoyed this change from the otherwise "interior" Euro books I force upon myself.

Good on the pros and cons of living abroad.

Dull, boring, blah.

Given the art on the cover of this book, and that it was made into a movie staring Kate Hudson, I always assumed this book was chick-lit. Then I discovered that the author has been nominated twice for the Pulitzer Prize and I thought I better take a closer look. The reality is that this falls somewhere in the middle of mindless relationship nonsense and worthwhile literature. It is certainly better written than most chick-lit, and the dialogue between the characters is believable. The book features an American, Isabel, who travels to France to be with her pregnant step-sister Roxanne. Roxanne has recently been dumped by her Parisian husband for a a Yugoslavian mistress. In the middle of the divorce is a painting whose ownership comes in to question. There is a great deal of focus on the differences among Americans, Parisians, and the British. The book started out promising - I figured it would be a lot about the marriage and being an ex pat in Paris, but after about 150 pages, I completely lost interest. I found the characters boring despite the potential for complex inter-relationships, and the plot twists became too unbelievable in a way that I did not find satirical or humorous. I am surprised that this book won a National Book Award, and feel like I need to read more reviews on-line to find out the secret meaning I clearly missed.

At first impression this book fascinated me, as the narrator's experience of Paris overlaps broadly with my own. It's the small details and the spark of recognition they ignite - for instance, there's nothing like listening to a French person speak your own (American) language with, to be sure, a French accent, but add to that the disorienting British filter that they picked up when they were learning English. (Which language *is* this?) Cheers to the author for making those essential trivialities hit home.

As I got deeper into Le Divorce, though, I started to notice that the narrator and I had drawn very different conclusions from the same city. One often hears the French stereotyped as snobs, and the book seems to agree - in fact, the narrator seems to enjoy applying stereotypes to people, and to her credit, she does it in a juicy way. In my own experience I came away with a different feeling. The French I met weren't snobs; they just lived by a different set of cultural rules. Let's not forget, it's the visitor's job to understand.

Then I realized that while the French characters in Le Divorce have their faults - big ones - the narrator is the one who's being snobbish. Her vague disdain tricks you for a while. You think it's coming from what you're looking at; then you realize it's actually in the lens you're looking through. Isabel lumps people into groups, is put off by the French, gets annoyed by her sister, and maintains a habit of looking down on herself. It's subtle, but it pervades the book.

A few other critiques: contradictions are frequent. "Roxy loves going to flea markets." Two pages later: "Roxy despises flea markets." Is it one or the other, Isabel, or both? I must add that the narrative takes every opportunity to muse off on detours with the aimlessness of daily living. When Carl was lending me the book, he said, "It's kind of just... life." It follows the same circles of interest and non-interest that characterize the mundane. Some things build the story, others don't. I won't fault it for that - being too real - still, the story could have hung together better. And while it's an interesting concept, I'm getting sick of hearing about "the mysterious toxins of pregnancy."

Nevertheless, Le Divorce is an interesting read. I was happy to plug on through to the end, and I couldn't put it down at the climax. It would have been nice to have seen an answer to the question we started with: What is Isabel going to do with her life? I left our heroine feeling that she's a step or two closer to knowing who she wants to be; that's about all we get. She'll probably keep living abroad, growing into the person she's started to become in France, defining herself. Probably without the monsieur.

Final impression? I still can't explain why we needed to ponder the ethics of foie gras and the feeding of geese in the *last paragraph,* right in the middle of all those poignant questions we were being left with. Not sure how that helps to tie everything together. Not sure I'm supposed to ask.

Prolly the worst book i've ever read. I've never struggled to just get it over with. Would reccoment NOT to read this!!!

This was a really great book. Until it wasn't. The last fifty pages just rode it right off the rails, as the author struggled to tie up several non-essential story lines and dropped the tone from a fascinating collision of family and cultural values to, well, a car wreck. Still, disregarding that, as a Francophile and a young woman struggling to make sense of her life, I enjoyed reading Isabel's perspective on France and her story.

Read this because it was on a "must read" list in a book by Francine Prose. I liked the premise - a younger sister going to Paris to help out her pregnant older sister as well as to find some meaning in her life. At first it was quite enjoyable - a bit of light yet intelligent reading- but the tone changed dramatically to the point where it became depressing. Then it changed again and again and after awhile I didn't much care about any character. Or the melodramatic storyline either

There's SO much going on in this book. In the first half it's a funny comedy of manners about an American getting mixed up with Parisian society, and it's great. Then it does an abrupt about-face and turns into a story of mental health, a weird love affair, murder, a painting, and a weird little side-plot about stolen furniture that never gets properly resolved.

In short, there's way too much going on. It reads like it doesn't quite know what it wants to be, the various plots almost seeming like separate novels mushed together.

It's best in the first half when it reads purely as a comedy of manners. Then it gets very muddled. It doesn't quite deserve the shockingly low rating it has, but it also doesn't quite justify lots higher by the end.

I found this story of life, love, marriage, divorce, and lots of family decent enough. I enjoyed it mostly because I had spent two summers in France when I was in high school and found Diane Johnson's descriptions of family life, long drawn out meals, how French culture works, and being an American living in France to bring back memories of my summers abroad. About halfway through the book I started to loose interest a bit. The story lines got to be a bit much, and the wonder of the characters had started to wear out. Overall this is an enjoyable read, nothing too heavy, especially if you are an American who has ever spent time in another country. As an aside, I did see the movie, which was a disappointment. It didn't have the flavor of France that I found in the book.

I loved this book. I was apprehensive about it at first because it looked like chick lit (for want of a better term) and it seemed to be about very rich and privileged people, but the author is a master prose stylist, and the book is a deep meditation on nationality and Americanness.