2022.05.23 Meeting Notes

We met this month to discuss The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley. Everyone was in person and we had no Zoom attendees. 
This just in, Cindy Johanson is our official library liaison, thank you Cindy!
We welcomed 2 new members: Chris and Emma. I’ve added you both to my email list and I sent a BookMovement invite to you as well. That is the site we use for all reminders and all you need to do is create a login. 
If you’re reading this and you DON’T have a BookMovement login, let me know. I’ll send you one as well. 
Thank you to Jay for bringing the snacks, we had quite a feast! 
On to the book....
We had some surprises with The Paris Apartment. Some people who I thought wouldn’t like it, did. And some I thought would love it, didn’t. 
The book scored: two 9s, ten 8s, three 7s, one 6, and two 5s. The 15 of us who were present had a really great discussion. 
Some of the negatives that provided those low scores centered around the fact that Ben survived. Several people were very disappointed that he was kept alive in the attic room. One person (I won’t mention names but rhymes with flo-zay) even took off points for this. Most of us agreed that Ben was an unlikeable character and those of us who wanted him alive at the end, it was for the twist, not because he was a great guy. 
Some people had a hard time getting into the book. We had comments that the beginning was slow but it picked up, but we also had people say that the middle was the slow part. Some just couldn’t get into it and others thought it was farcical at times – and not in a good way. Jeff went all rogue and thought that it was like Phantom of the Opera and Ben was living in the walls and terrorizing everyone. Although this may be a reflection on you, Jeff, not the author. Just sayin.’ 
The positives were that it kept us guessing and we loved all the twists. Amy, who doesn’t like manor house mysteries...actually like this manor house mystery. We liked the closed environment of it, even though it was set in Paris, it was really just set in the house. Speaking of the house, I think most of us agreed that we couldn’t picture the apartment building. I likened it to the building in Taken with Liam Neeson, where his daughter is watching across the courtyard as they take her friend and then come for her. It was hard for us to picture what was going on without getting a hang of the floor plan. 
Lots of us were surprised Jacques was dead and we thought the author did a great job of writing it in a way that the flashbacks kept him in the picture, so we forgot he was “on a business trip.” We agreed that we were glad he was dead, though. Couldn't have happened to a more deplorable guy. And we loved that his sons buried him and thought he was Ben.
There weren’t really many characters we liked. Mostly Jess and maybe the Concierge. “Mimi, 4th Floor” was just downright irritating. Jay pointed out that the family was mob like. 
Lastly, some people who liked the book may have had a slightly skewed score after the PTSD experienced from the Karin Slaughter book. 
Next month we will meet to discuss Harlan Coben’s The Match (book two in the Wilde series).
On another note: The Highlands Ranch library is hosting a Denver Noir Author Panel on June 24. I’ll be out of town, but if anyone is interested in signing up, here is the link:
https://douglascountylibraries.evanced.info/msignup/details?EventId=197617
See you in June,
Kerry