The story started out strong but lost me towards the end. The modern day Ella was not a sympathetic character to me, and everything about her search for the past seemed a bit too easy, from her very quick pickup of French, to her affair with Jean-Paul, to how she found Marie. It was really not believable, too many holes in the story. Isabelle's story got short shrift, IMHO. All in all, in the end I was not satisfied with the book. I gave it three stars, but barely.

While I did enjoy the story line until the end, the ending was a little tangential and convenient, a disappointment to me. During the book, I did find myself thinking about the characters and felt a desire to pick it up and see what was going to develop. Maybe that's what led to the disappointment. There was some character development that could've gone a little further. Overall, not bad but I wouldn't recommend it.

I got a late start on my Virtuous Reading this week, so I crossed my fingers when I picked this book off the shelf that it would be a fast read. I was rewarded beyond my expectations by this wonderful novel. I had a hard time putting it down; the "sucked in" gravity was strong in this one. It probably helped that I'm a historian who's lived and travelled in France, where the story is set.

Really, there's more than one story, in an A.S. Byatt kind of way. Modern woman comes to France, learns about woman ancestor, parallel experiences, blah blah. Except way more engaging than almost any other book of that sort that I've read. Hard to say exactly what's so appealing about this particular story--I personally hate the whole Huguenot time period/story line (Protestants bore me). But this time, it really worked for me.

Here's the highest compliment I can give: I want to break up my reading routine and read everything else Tracy Chevalier has written.

At first I liked Ella’s chapters more than Isabelle’s, but as the story neared its end I was disappointed every time a chapter ended and the point of view changed. The second-to-last chapter, in which the points of view alternated until both character came to the same realization at the same time, was great. And it actually surprised me, I hadn’t seen it coming for a long while.

Big kudos for the French also. As a francophone, I can testify to how difficult it is to find an English book in which French is used correctly and without mistakes. In this one, the French was (almost) flawless. And not only that, but when Jean-Luc, a Frenchman, spoke English, his mistakes were natural and didn’t feel forced by the author. They were the kinds of mistakes I hear around me when francophones speak English without being completely fluent in it. Adverbs placed in the wrong place, verbs just slightly misconjugated, common expressions sometimes wrongly used. Nothing felt like the author bashing us over the head saying, “look at this guy, he’s speaking English but he’s French!”

Although, I was a little disappointed in the editing and the above-average number of typos. I realize as an editor my brain is trained to see these more than other readers, but still, it’s been a while since I last read a published book with that many typographical errors.

meh

I was absolutly stunned when I read the ending. Stunned. I highly suggest this book for anyone.

Fa-ha-bulous!

I was given this book, and while it had promise and I was interested the book left so much up in the air and unanswered-if you don't mind that then you may enjoy it.

I’d been quite impressed with Girl With a Pearl Earring so I was quite excited when I saw this on the shelf in work. And I ended up underwhelmed.

Isabella and her storyline is by far the strongest in the book. Give me a full novel about her and I’ll be happy! I wanted to know more about her life and her feelings. I wanted to know more about her relationships with Hannah and Etienne and her children.

I did not care for Ella. Sorry.

The author had a really interesting and unique idea and then messed it up by including the modern storyline. I would have been a much stronger story without it.