Five Days in Paris review
I read Five Days in Paris by Danielle Steel. To begin, I honestly did not like this book very much. It was a very boring book, and the way Danielle explained and introduced new plot was horrible. She would explain the concept bluntly and upfront. Everything was given to you, and to make it worse, she wouldn’t merge the information with what one of the characters was saying or thinking, she would break the fourth wall and say it directly. Horridly boring way to get information, and it turned this simple 270 page book into what seemed like a 700 page nightmare.
This book is a romance novel. I have no real reason why I chose this book. I needed a book, and this one looked more interesting than the other books out of my selection. It really didn’t seem all that bad before I started reading it. The book is about a man named Peter Haskell, a president of a pharmaceutical company about to release a “miracle” drug, and a woman named Olivia Thatcher. Olivia is already in a very bad relationship with an overly-ambitious politician. Olivia is very confused; she doesn’t love the man she is married to anymore.
The protagonists are Peter and Olivia. The multiple antagonists are Olivia’s husband, a crazed politician, and Peter’s father-in-law, Frank, who wants to release Vicotec, a potentially dangerous drug that supposedly kills cancer (which is why “miracle” is in quotes up above), for the money rather than for the safety of the people with cancer. There are no other significant characters in this book.
Peter goes to Paris to do a campaign sort of thing for his pharmaceutical company, but more for their creation, Vicotec. This drug was designed to kill cancer, but it had crazy side effects and killed the user of it sometimes. While staying at a hotel, someone threatens the hotel with a bomb, which forces everyone to evacuate. This includes Peter and Olivia. Peter noticed Olivia walking away in the dark by herself, and without thinking, catches up to her and they talk for a very long time about their lives. Olivia runs away in the near future, and Peter is the only one that really cares for Olivia, so he decides to track her down. They have a very limited time together in Paris, a mere five days, so Peter has to act fast to find her.
More problems arise after Peter gets back to the States. His insanely greedy father-in-law pushes for Vicotec’s release, thinking only of profits. Peter is very confused and overwhelmed with emotion. He thought his life was perfect, but Olivia makes him realize that it isn’t. Olivia is in a marriage with a man who she doesn’t love anymore, and runs away. Being in each other’s presence makes them both happy and they truly enjoy the time they spend together.
The strange thing is, is that Peter is also married, with children. He really gets caught over this because he can’t decide over his currently failing marriage and his children, or a girl he doesn’t know very much. Things get slightly hectic, but it never builds up too high.
The main conflict for this story is hard to decide. Peter is just a flesh bag full of twisted emotions and daunting problems. To settle for a single conflict, it would be man vs. self. Peter must decide who he loves, who he wants to be with, and he has to do this in a short amount of time, while under pressure. Most of the book really goes over how bad of a mental state he is in.
A possible theme for this is,”keep moving forward, and don’t let anything get in your way.” Peter was having a very bad time making up his mind and stopping his dad. He was overwhelmed with emotion and he was afraid that Vicotec would be released. He went full on into his problems, and took them out one at a time. He didn’t stop or slow down; he kept going. No matter how much harder it got for him, he kept moving. His problems were resolved after complete hardships, and he was satisfied with the results he got.
The author has a very distinct and boring writing style. She explains everything upfront, directly, boringly, and she repeats herself too many times to count. She does not use many large or sophisticated words either. This book was extremely boring to read. It felt like it took much longer than it really did to read it. It was hard to get motivated enough to start, and when I reached my goal for pages read for the day, I didn’t hesitate to close it up and forget about it. I definitely do not recommend this book. Besides being boring to read, it was very predictable, and its story was clichéd. Twilight had a better storyline (now that’s saying something).