From the Bookshelf of 2025 Reading Challenge…

The Paris Apartment

Lucy Foley

Start date: June 1, 2022

Finish date: June 30, 2022

Discussion: October 2025 Group Read

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October 2025 Group Read

Weyward: Mid-Reading Discussion
By Winter , Group Reads · 3 posts · 33 views

last updated Oct 03, 2025 01:03AM

Weyward: Pre-Reading Discussion
By Winter , Group Reads · 7 posts · 33 views

last updated Oct 02, 2025 08:30AM

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What Members Thought

Jan 07, 2022 Michelle rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Jess Is broke and unemployed. She needs a fresh start. So, she decides to contact her half brother Ben who is a journalist and currently residing 12 Rue des Amants in Paris. He offers for her to stay with him and when she agrees he not that ecstatic. But might bring them a bit closer together after what has happened in the family’s past.
But when she arrives in Paris it is turbulent, there is fighting and riots going on in the capital city. When she arrives at the apartment, she first can’t belie ...more

25 likes · Like · see review

Feb 15, 2023 Michelle rated it really liked it

Wow what a ride. It was full of twists and turns throughout the entire book.

3 likes · Like · see review

Aug 28, 2022 Nadine in NY Jones rated it it was ok

Shelves: authors-i-don-t-ever-want-to-read-a, r2022-in-2022, everyone-loved-it-except-me, audio, mystery, book-club-read, suspense-thriller, womens-day

I despised this book. This was an irritating book with a decent ending.

There is A LOT of fake suspense in the beginning of this book, which was extremely irritating. Jess sees a shadowy figure pull out something that could be a knife! but it's an iPhone. Jess sees a shadowy face in the darkness! but it's just a statue. Jess senses that something is not right! something lands heavily on her back! it's just a cat. Everyone in the building has seeeecrets and everything is ommmmminous and i I despised this book. This was an irritating book with a decent ending.

There is A LOT of fake suspense in the beginning of this book, which was extremely irritating. Jess sees a shadowy figure pull out something that could be a knife! but it's an iPhone. Jess sees a shadowy face in the darkness! but it's just a statue. Jess senses that something is not right! something lands heavily on her back! it's just a cat. Everyone in the building has seeeecrets and everything is ommmmminous and it all adds up to a Big Zero. It’s a pot full of red herrings.

And Foley is one of those authors who loves to restate the blindingly obvious. "The door opens and closes. They've gone." YES I gathered that they just left, because you told me the door opened and closed.

I despised the main character, Jess. She is a sneaky, nosey, selfish mooch. Everything she sees, she evaluates for how much money she could get if she pawned it. She's not above some petty theft, on the regular. She’s also a blithering idiot.

I didn’t like ANY of the characters, but that was also the case in the other Foley book I read. I didn't care what happened to any of them because I didn’t care about any of them. I hoped they would ALL just jump off the roof of the building. That makes the entire book boring. It’s not helped by the way the voice actors read each character.

Here's my theory: Foley got really really high one day, and watched Eyes Wide Shut, and decided that would make a brilliant thriller, and by the time she had sobered up and realized it was going to be pure shite, it was too late, her publisher was expecting the book and she had to write it, so she built this whole thing around that one thin idea.

A lot of characters are described by their scent, in particular the scent of their SWEAT, which was quite unappealing. In the Author's Note, Foley says she wrote this while pregnant, and perhaps that explains the obsession with scent. I remember how elevated my sense of smell was when I was pregnant.

I will admit that the ending surprised me. And I guess that's really the ultimate point of books like this: a surprise ending. It's not quite on the level of "loved her?? I HATED her!" but it's close. So, kudos for the ending, but the rest of the book irritated me so much that I can't give this more than two stars. ...more

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