Almost French: Love and a New Life in Paris Review
This memoir - from an Australian journalist who voluntarily transplants herself in Paris, all in the name of luuuuuvvvvv - is quite amusing. I really enjoyed her Anglo take on all things French, and the way she took the reader through her transformation until she was Almost French.
Most aspects of the culture are addressed here, and though I thought it would be prominent, her relationship with the man she moved across the world for is almost ignored. He is only mentioned as her barometer of all things French and how she is doing coping with them.
The descriptions of the food and wine will make you hungry. The descriptions of human interaction made me shake my head (openly insulting each other in stores? Crazy!) And the fashion? I don't get it at all.
But I really really enjoyed it!!
(*)>
Almost French: Love and a New Life in Paris Feature
- ISBN13: 9781592400829
- Condition: New
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Almost French: Love and a New Life in Paris Overview
A delightful, fresh twist on the travel memoir,
Almost French takes us on a tour that is fraught with culture clashes but rife with deadpan humor.
Sarah Turnbull’s stint in Paris was only supposed to last a week. Chance had brought Sarah and Frédéric together in Bucharest, and on impulse she decides to take him up on his offer to visit him in the world’s most romantic city. Sacrificing Vegemite for vichyssoise, the feisty journalist does her best to fit in, although her conversation, her laugh, and even her wardrobe advertise her foreign status.
But as she navigates the highs and lows of this strange new world, from life in a bustling quartier and surviving Parisian dinner parties to covering haute couture fashion shows and discovering the paradoxes of French culture, little by little Sarah falls under its spell: maddening, mysterious, and charged with that French specialty—seduction.
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Customer Reviews
Could You Move to Paris on a Whim for "The One?" - Natalie Miele - Neptune Beach, FL
Almost French: Love and a New Life in Paris by Sarah Turnbull is a memoir about the Australian author's time in Paris as she falls in love, learns the culture (or tries to fit in), and tries to get consistent work as a journalist. Perhaps it was because it was a travel memoir and fitting in that I thought so often of Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert, but within pages it held a completely separate voice for me.
Sarah Turnbull has taken time off from her job in Australia to travel Europe -- she figures that she might as well do it now since she can afford to take the time and she has no commitments -- after all, why wait until much later in life when work and family obligations might get in the way? Off she goes to Europe, and while in Bucharest, she meets Frederic, and decides to do something different than she's ever done before and completely change her plans -- go to Paris to stay with a guy that she only met for a few days in Bucharest. Throwing caution to the wind she goes -- and settles into Paris and tries to find her place within the culture and the job market.
This book is a hit in Australia and it was definitely a really pleasant read. I enjoyed her moments of confusion in trying to understand fashion and language, and there is one particular moment that I spluttered my coffee out with laughter for my combined shock and for feeling the author's complete embarrassment -- a simple moment in which she asks her new boyfriend in front of his friends if he would like his smoking pipe, when she mistakenly really asked him if he, ahem...would like something, um, sexual to occur. Made me laugh out loud!I felt for her trying to fit in and get used to it all, and as I've traveled quite a bit in my life and lived in multiple locations, I felt my understanding and my frustrations for her experiences grow as I read each page. It's tough to fit in sometimes!
The only aspect that found me a little wanting was that I felt she wrote with such great detail on so many events and moments, but she skipped quite a bit on the love she had with Frederic which was the ultimate reason which compelled her to move to Paris in the first place. Perhaps it was out of respect for their intimacies (completely understandable) and perhaps I'm just an old romantic at heart, but I felt a tad removed from the blossoming love that they experienced within their relationship that would so compel this grounded and logical woman to completely forgo her plan to travel all of Europe and instead, after one week of meeting with a man, to move instead to Paris to begin life anew.
Sarah Turnbull's descriptions of Parisian life, the eccentric characters she meets in a new neighborhood, and her ability (or lack thereof) to fit in fashionably at first, were quite endearing and offered a fun snapshot into her life. I cheered for her to find the right job, and enjoyed her journalistic cadence as Turnbull related each event with sometimes a distant voice and sometimes with close up scrutiny, one that ultimately turns into quite a fun trip into Parisian culture!
a mixed bag - Mary H. Lesser - Valdese, NC
The writer is at her best when she's describing Paris and at her worst when she's whining about how the French are so, well, French. Probably the least self-aware personal account of anything I've ever read.
Almost French an Insightful Memoir - PamelaLMFT -
As a Francophile and traveler to France, I found Sarah Turnbull's absorbing life-in-France exploration particularly helpful in understanding the subtleties and perplexities of French culture and mores. She writes in a charming, articulate, self-effacing style. I laughed out loud several times. And she describes her adventures in such a warm, intimate style that I felt I was learning right along with her, almost face to face. Her scrutiny is sharp, but affectionate. No one escapes her incisive observations--especially herself--but her steadfast love of the French permeates the work. Delightful and recommended. Merci.
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