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Happy Wednesday!  Today I have a review of Paris Echo, a new release by Sebastian Faulks, now available via Henry Holt publishing!

My Thoughts:

Hannah is an American historian, and she’s studying World War II in Paris (sounds like something I’d love to do!). She harbors some resentment towards the City of Lights due to something in her past when she was younger. 

Hannah meets Tariq, a Moroccan teenager, who sees Paris as a land of opportunity in stark contrast to his own he is fleeing. In need of a place to stay, he ends up boarding with Hannah. Both Hannah and Tariq are very much outsiders to the city. 

Tariq begins to see Paris in a different, more complicated light, and at the same time, Hannah discovers something in her research that shakes her to her very core. 

With themes of inequity and corruption versus dreams and seeking freedom, Paris Echo is a complex, beautifully-written, engaging novel of friendship and second chances. Hannah and Tariq form a bond that is healing for each of them. Hannah has to heal from her past, and Tariq has to heal for his future. The atmosphere is rich and absorbing, and the story is as well with its multiple layers. 

Thank you to Henry Holt and Company for the ARC. All opinions are my own. 

Synopsis:

Here is Paris as you have never seen it before – a city in which every building seems to hold the echo of an unacknowledged past, the shadows of Vichy and Algeria.

American postdoctoral researcher Hannah and runaway Moroccan teenager Tariq have little in common, yet both are susceptible to the daylight ghosts of Paris. Hannah listens to the extraordinary witness of women who were present under the German Occupation; in her desire to understand their lives and through them her own, she finds a city bursting with clues and connections. Out in the migrant suburbs, Tariq is searching for a mother he barely knew. For him, in his innocence, each boulevard, Métro station and street corner is a source of surprise.

In this urgent and deeply moving novel, Faulks deals with questions of empire, grievance, and identity. With great originality and a dark humour, Paris Echo asks how much we really need to know if we are to live a valuable life.

Have you read Paris Echo, or is it on your TBR? Happy Reading! ~ Jennifer THR