Name: Un appartement à Paris
ISBN: 9782266285025

 Guillaume Musso

Paris, un atelier d'artiste au fond d'une allée verdoyante. Madeline, une ex-flic londonienne, y est venue pour panser ses blessures. Gaspard, un auteur misanthrope, l'a loué pour écrire dans la solitude. A la suite d'une méprise, ces deux écorchés vifs sont contraints de cohabiter quelque temps. Dans l'atelier, où plane encore le fantôme de l'ancien propriétaire, Madeline et Gaspard vont mettre au jour un secret terrifiant. Et cette découverte glaçante va les forcer à affronter leurs propres démons dans une enquête vertigineuse qui les changera à jamais.

Un appartement à Paris

Charlie

** spoiler alert **
           Where do I even start?
I have A LOT of problems with this book.
First of all, the sexism. The female characters are either sexualized or described in insulting ways if they aren't conventionally attractive. The muscular woman of color is "trapped in the body of a wrestler" or something like that. The loss of an ex model's beauty is seen as a sign that she's hit rock bottom. The young French student that the much older character flirts with is assumed to do everything, even the smallest gestures, to seduce said older guy. Most of the women have attempted suicide, and 2 of them have succeeded. One of them did it because her ex boyfriend had a baby with someone else, one of them did it because life meant nothing without her dead ex husband, who painted her nude without her consent on subway cars as a way of courting her when she was 18 and he was much older, and the third one did it in part because a man didn't love her.
The description of the characters of colour and of the gay characters was very stereotypical. The latina woman was sensual, the gay asian man was well dressed and dandy, "fit for a role in a Wong Kar-Wai movie", the indian woman was an ugly monster.
The book was also very pro-cop. One of the main characters is a cop, and she sees anti-cop and anti-capitalistic protests as a sign that the world is in a downward spiral, becoming ugly and violent because of the protestors.
Just writing this review is making me want to give it less stars.
Now, what I liked about this book.
Not gonna lie, the ending got to me. Seeing the main characters reach that conclusion after all they went through warmed my heart. The road to the ending might have been convoluted and borderline offensive, and as I read through the last few chapters, I was ready to give it one star, but the ending was really satisfying. And I liked how convoluted the mystery was. It had lots of plot twists, and it kept me reading. It was interesting.
I feel like this book could have been better written, that's all. Take out the gross description of young women and the other offensive stuff, and you've got an ok book.

Un appartement à Paris

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