Franck Lanier avait tout arrangé pour les vacances. Il casait son fils chez son ex-femme et il filait à Bangkok. Mais son petit garçon, Laurent, n’est pas du tout d’accord. Il veut, lui aussi, partir pour Bangkok. Tous les moyens lui seront bons pour parvenir à ses fins, des plus drôles aux plus désespérés, et des aventures peu banales se succèdent dans une vie quotidienne pleine de tendresse entre le père et le fils. Par l’auteur de L’Amour aveugle , ce roman alerte, plein d’humour, est un des grands succès de ces dernières années.
I read this for French class, blindly trusting the teacher who thought it would be easy because it doesn't use the passé simple tense. Au contraire! It was actually harder because it was narrated by a 10 year old boy who used very colloquial and familiar French. I was looking up at least 2-3 words per page, which is way too much. I'm currently reading Arsène Lupin, which I find much much much easier, to the surprise of the teacher. But I know why it's easier: the structure is more "literary", and being used to reading Italian, it just flows. I'm used to the "literary past" (or "remote past" as it's called in Italian), so that's no hindrance. I look up maybe 1 word every 3 pages, and usually just for curiosity sake, not because I need it for understanding. With M. Papa I was looking up too many words just to be able to understand what was going on.
Anyway, enough about my fun with French. As for the book itself, it was funny in parts, touching in parts, but in the end, pretty superficial. And I guess it's just not my thing.