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    Lessons in French: A Novel
    Lessons in French: A Novel
    Lessons in French: A Novel
    Ebook418 pages6 hours

    Lessons in French: A Novel

    By Hilary Reyl

    3/5

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    About this ebook

    It’s 1989, the Berlin Wall is coming down, and Kate has just graduated from Yale, eager to pursue her dreams as a fledgling painter. When she receives a job offer to work as the assistant to Lydia Schell, a famous American photographer in Paris, she immediately accepts. It’s a chance not only to be at the center of it all, but also to return to France for the first time since she was a lonely nine-year-old girl, sent to the outskirts of Paris to live with cousins while her father was dying.

    Kate may speak fluent French, but she arrives at the Schell household in the fashionable Sixth Arrondissement both dazzled and wildly impressionable. She finds herself surrounded by a seductive cast of characters, including the bright, pretentious Schells, with whom she boards, and their assortment of famous friends; Kate’s own flamboyant cousin; a fellow Yalie who seems to have it all figured out; and a bande of independently wealthy young men with royal lineage. As Kate rediscovers Paris and her roots there, while trying to fit into Lydia’s glamorous and complicated family, she begins to question the kindness of the people to whom she is so drawn as well as her own motives for wanting them to love her.

    In compelling and sympathetic prose, Hilary Reyl perfectly captures this portrait of a precocious, ambitious young woman struggling to define herself in a vibrant world that spirals out of her control. Lessons in French is at once a love letter to Paris and the story of a young woman finding herself, her moral compass, and, finally, her true family.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster
    Release dateMar 5, 2013
    ISBN9781451655049
    Lessons in French: A Novel
    Author

    Hilary Reyl

    Hilary Reyl has a PhD in French literature from NYU with a focus on the nineteenth century, and has spent several years working and studying in France. She lives in New York City with her family. Lessons in French is her first novel.

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    Reviews for Lessons in French

    3/5

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    • 3/5
      The Devil Wears Prada meets Le Divorce in this coming of age story about a young woman who gets a job as the assistant of a famous photo-journalist in Paris, only to fall into the messy lives of the entire family. Kate's father died when she was a child, and during his long illness she had been sent to stay with relatives in Paris. A decade later she lands the job because of her French language skills. She's eager to please, reflecting back on each member of the family what they want to see, allowing them to confide far more than is appropriate. As for Kate, she longs for the illusion of belonging, every careless inclusion makes her feel as though she's part of the Schell family. Of course, as we know from literature, the servant is only ever let into a family so far, and no further, and that same servant is only viewed with affection insofar as she is useful.Lydia Schell is a boss very much in the Miranda Priestly mold, knowing just how far she could push Kate, and when to drop some small nugget of affirmation. She has no trouble taking her daughter on shopping sprees for designer clothes or having her large apartment in the fashionable sixieme arrondissement repainted on a whim, but she charges Kate an outrageous rent for the small maid's room she's required to live in and berates her for her stupidity when the fruit Kate was sent out to buy for her cost more than she'd like. Lydia's by far the strongest person in the family, but each gets what they want from Kate, who isn't quite the doormat they believe her to be.I enjoyed this novel. It doesn't break any new ground, or do anything original, but it does tread familiar ground in a pleasing and entertaining way. It might have been a stronger novel had the final events unfolded with a little more force - Kate repeatedly comes up against difficult decisions and then finds that the consequences are either softer than expected, or she doesn't have to make that decision after all. There's quite a few substantial ideas and themes presented and if they aren't always fully developed, it does mean Lessons in French was never boring. What was boring, on the other hand, was the cover. And the title. Both were utterly forgettable, meaning that in a few months, even if I haven't forgotten the contents, the title will have been.
    • 4/5
      Hilary Rehl’s first novel, Lessons in French, is not so much a young college woman’s coming of age story but rather a coming of mind. Kate, a Yale Graduate of 1989, applies for an aide de camp position with a successful American photographer/artist, Lydia Schell. Kate gets and interview and is surprised to be hired since her experience with art is an acquired talent for drawing exact likenesses of objects and people. But, Lydia has seen something in Kate that fits her rather complicated needs.Kate joins Lydia in Paris adopting a naïve but intelligent demeanor and an eager to please attitude. This pose creates immediate difficulties in the Schell Parisian household because Lydia’s professor/writer husband Clarence, frail and high-strung adult daughter Portia, and rebellious/confused teenage son Joshua take Kate at face value and underestimate her. Kate kids herself by using her poseur faulty reasoning to justify the seduction of Portia’s boyfriend, fostering an affair between Clarence and a graduate student, and setting up a false trust in Joshua.Kate, of course, is not the person she pretends to be, and Lydia knows it. Kate has experience with French life because she lived with family members in Paris for two years while her father was dying. She also has had sexual experiences and has developed skills that allow her to steal Portia’s beau. Kate also knows something about the Lydia’s artist eye. She learned at Yale how to act in upper class social situations and is smart enough to understand how intelligent/artistic people converse and think. Lydia plays Kate like a fiddle and Kate learns some very valuable lessons from Americans living in France. I liked in particular Ms. Rehyl’s use of Kate as a narrator. She is an excellent, careful describer of locations, behaviors, and thoughts, reminiscent of the narrator in Proust’s In Search of Lost Time. Kate’s narrative shows the reader her coming of mind in Paris from the lost time of her childhood to her found time as an adult.
    • 1/5
      Having been to Paris, I recognized some of the places that were described by Kate. But, I just became bored with the story and couldn't relate to anyone in it. Maybe there was too much description. I don't know, but when I started chapter 22 I found that I just didn't care to find out where the story was going. Maybe I will go and read the last chapter. Sorry. Wanted to give a good review of the book as I received it from Librarything for early review.
    • 3/5
      Sounded so promising, but this book presented a bunch of annoying characters and a very lame main character. The descriptions of food far surpassed any story lines. The author seemed obsessed with Versailles but did not really bring it to life. This book was a decent beach/airplane read, would make a fun chick flick, but there was nothing memorable here.
    • 4/5
      Lessons in French is Hilary Reyl‘s first novel, but it shows the fluency of long practice and careful editing. Lessons in French is not a perfect book – It may be getting more attention due to its glamorous setting than a coming of age story set in Topeka, Kansas would – but I did enjoy it for its glimpses into the arrondissements of Paris and the situations the young female narrator of the story, Kate (Katie, as she is known to friends) finds herself in.The author evokes the city of Paris during a time of historic change in Europe – the fall of the Berlin Wall – mirroring this change in Katie’s crisis of identity. Katie feels fragmented from only showing certain sides of herself to certain people. I would have liked the author to include more about European politics, the writers of the day, and the clashing philosophies of the time, but the novel is written from 20-something-year-old Katie’s somewhat limited perspective. Katie’s interests lie more in art and personal relationships than in history, politics, or literature.Katie has traveled outside of her comfort zone to spend a year in Paris working for Lydia, an artist who has just started making forays into photojournalism, documenting events like the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the fatwa against Salman Rushdie, and she isn’t sure that she’s made the right choice. (Her mother has an LSAT application ready for her to fill out.) Katie draws, but she’s not sure she’s any good. She hopes to spend more time developing her art while in Paris (where better?) but is pulled in all different directions by Lydia’s family drama – meltdowns, accusations, and potentally damaging secret-keeping.Trying to please everyone all of the time (including the dog) Katie finds herself with little or no time of her own to pursue a romance (with, problematically, the ex-boyfriend of her employers’ daughter), to hang out with her French cousins and friends, or to visit the French relatives she stayed with as a girl. It takes time for her to learn her way around Lydia’s dysfunctional household and to gain an appreciation for what being family truly means.Read complete review at Bay State Reader's Advisory blog.
    • 2/5
      I love Paris and was looking forward to reading a book about Paris. I was disappointed to find out that this was a book about a naive young girl who went to Paris to work for a very strange family and was faced with all kinds of obstacles that she didn't know how to handle. There was very little about Paris and way too much about the family. I didn't really like any of the characters in the book and had to force myself to finish it. Very disappointing.
    • 4/5
      This is a different sort of coming of age book. It's 1989--Kate has just completed her undergraduate degree at Yale and arrives in Paris to be an underpaid and unappreciated gopher for an American photographer who is documenting unfolding world events: the collapse of the Berlin wall and the riots against Salman Rushdie. Along the way, Kate learns to deal with her employer's weird family while deciding what her values are. She also confronts memories of living in Paris as a child.Ms. Reyl is a good storyteller: I found myself caring about Kate and wanted to see how she decided to resolve her conflicts. However, with the exception of Kate, her characters are rather one dimensional. She also didn't do much with the time period in which she set her story. The collapse of the Berlin wall seemed to be an after thought. Still, I enjoyed the book--it took me away to France and reminded me of the hopes and self-searching I did when I graduated.
    • 2/5
      Mediocre at best. The main character, Kate, was way too naive and pliable to be believable. The other characters were not likable. Much of the story revolved around Kate's romance with Olivier, her employer's daughter's ex boyfriend, but that relationship never seemed real. It was not convincingly written. Kate tells the reader that she loves Olivier, but we never really see evidence or reason for a true bond between them.Likewise, I was never sure why Kate loved the other characters - Clarence, Claudia, etc. - so much. I didn't get the appeal. I think the author was trying to establish a link between Clarence and Kate's father in Kate's mind, but it was unconvincing. That last scene with Clarence and Kate at the end was just weird and pathetic.
    • 3/5
      Lessons in French was exactly as advertised in the pre-publication bytes-the coming of age story of a young woman recently graduated from Yale who spends a year in Paris as an assistant to a well known photographer in the 1980s.It is at once-or attempts to be-a story about families, the Berlin Wall, love triangles, friendship, literary figures, betrayal and Paris itself, and for me, it never completely found its voice.Kate, the protagonist, was likeable and relatable at times, but seemed inconsistent in a way that did not let the reader fully invest in the outcome.While Lessons is well written with believable dialog and good visual imagery, the author used many French "mots" (words) and phrases that if the reader cannot read French (I can), it could be confusing or even annoying.I do recommend Lessons in French as an engaging read, not without its charming aspects-a worthwhile debut.
    • 3/5
      The book ended rather suddenly! Wait wait, i want to know what happens next! But I suppose I will have to wait to see if the characters are revisited and their stories are continued.Did she make it to art school. Did she run into the ex-boyfriend and the daughter in NYC? Does her cousin die? Does she meet her Yalie friend in five years? Does she return to Paris?A good read.
    • 4/5
      The story of a young woman’s experience working as an assistant to a photographer in France, Lessons in French is more than its plot. The protagonist and narrator, Katherine, is an excellent example of a realistic character. She has flaws, she is imperfect, and she learns difficult lessons, but through it all she remains blissfully ignorant almost to the point of making the reader want to throw the book across the room in frustration. But what lesson would a perfect protagonist teach? The imperfections in these characters, each of them, teaches a different lesson. It is a challenging story to get into; the lengthy dialogues in the first several chapters seem boring and drawn-out until the participants become known and either liked or despised. But it is well worth reading through the initial set up with an open mind to get to the heart of the story, the friendship, the heartbreak, the history. It is, in the end, the story of a period of time in a particular place.
    • 3/5
      Her creation of the hateful Lydia character is quite impressive.The story is well written, but ultimately pointless, unless its point is to show the futility of being a people-pleaser.There's way too much untranslated French in this novel, which comes across as snobbery. If they didn't want to break up the narrative with translations, they should have provided a glossary keyed in to the book's title, "Lessons In French."
    • 4/5
      I won this great book through, early readers at Librarything, and found it fast reading, enjoyable, and thought provoking. While it could be thought of as a young adult book because of the age and growth of the young woman, Kate it's an adult read. I could relate to the struggles of Kate to speak for herself (whoever that was) and to want to be liked by these self centered, talented people. While we could feel frustrated by her naivete, it was the premise for the story. Hilary writes well, and while I speak no French, I was able to see the pictures she was painting with her well chosen words.After reading the book, I realised that it reminded me a little of Nanny Diaries.
    • 2/5
      this is rather a young adult book, because the main character is an unfinished human being who tries to find herself in life. Not sure if she does in the end. Trying to please every one instead of concentrating on what is important in life, she ends up frazzled between family and employer and lover.Not necessary a book, I would recommend to book lovers, but a good book for someone who likes to get a superficial view of Paris.
    • 4/5
      Freshly minted college graduate, Katie, has lucked into a dream job -- working in Paris assisting world-renowned photographer, Lydia Schell. Her small room at the top floor of the Schell's building costs her 2/3 of her monthly wages, but offers lovely views over the Sixth Arrondissement. Quickly adapting to her surroundings, she finds herself being folded into the daily family life of her Employer. Demanding Lydia has problems with boundaries, but Katie is eager to please. Quickly complicating matters is her attraction to Olivier, former boyfriend to the Schell's daughter, as well as her possible complicity in the complicated love life of Clarence Schell, Lydia's academic husband. Many have criticized the Schell family as shallow, self-centered snobs of the highest order. I don't demand that I like the characters in the books I read. Indeed, I found the Schells' transgressiveness wickedly entertaining, in a 'oh-no-she-didn't!' sort of way. Katie seemed to take a maddeningly long time to catch on -- those French 'lessons' were hard won. Reyl knows Paris well - like her heroine, she spent time there as a girl, and worked there out of college. Her prose is spiced with lively descriptions of the attractions of the City of Light, and peopled with the likes of Salman Rushdie, Umberto Eco and Henri Cartier-Benson. The heady Parisian atmosphere is a large part of this book's charm. I would recommend this book for those who love light-hearted books evocative of Paris in its many forms.
    • 3/5
      I agree with other reviews that the book reminds me of "The Devil Wears Prada" with the main character, Kate, getting carried away with the connections to famous people and then finally realizing by the end of the story what is truly important to her. It took her the whole book to change from being naive and submissive into finally being confident enough to be her own person. It seemed to me that Kate, who was old enough to have graduated from college, shouldn't have been so ignorant about life and relationships. For me, it was a little boring and dragged out in some spots (I got tired of hearing about the Berlin Wall, Umberto Eco and Rushdie) , but, on the other hand, the setting in Paris and the part of the story about her cousin, Etienne, were enjoyable.
    • 1/5
      Kate has the opportunity of a lifetime in her role as the assistant to a famous photographer. Not only will she be living with the Schell family, meeting their famous circle of friends, but she will have the opportunity to work on improving her art in a city that caters to untried artists around the globe. Hilary Reyl’s debut novel, Lessons in French, follows Kate as she adjusts to her new surroundings, meeting new friends, connecting with old ones, and discovering love and life in the quintessential city for doing just that.Kate is meant to be sympathetic – a young woman with parental issues looking to find herself in Paris. However, she comes across as particularly naïve, weak, and easily manipulated. Her deep-seated need to please everyone quickly evolves from endearing to annoying. Similarly, her inability to heed the advice of her friends is maddening. Someone with the strength and mental fortitude it takes to move to a different country and start a new live-in job with strangers should have more of a backbone than the one not exhibited by Kate. It is almost as if she feels it necessary to punish herself for some unknown, long-ago indiscretion, but the punishment lasts too long and does not fit whatever crime she believes she committed. The end result is a character whose mental turmoil irritates rather than creates sympathy, which is not necessarily optimal for a coming-of-age story.Living in Paris, or at least abroad, is a dream most people will never realize. The history, the architecture, the atmosphere – they all help Paris feel like the ideal locale to find oneself and learn about life. Yet, Ms. Reyl’s version of Paris is one that diminishes the mystique of this beloved city. The charming elements of the city have been tainted by the milieu into which Kate has been thrust. The Schells are horrible snobs, looking down on anyone who does not hold their same ideals and perfectly awful towards those who are no longer in their favor. Their liberal airs border on the maniacal, while their esoteric jokes about such things as Deconstructionism and sycophancy in journalism feel overdone and false. A reader is left wondering if people actually talk like the Schells and cannot help but feel disappointed that their influence diminishes the quirky aspects of the city. Even worse, the Schells are mere caricatures of the artists and upper class that flocked to Paris during the Gilded Age, clueless about the true issues of the day but convinced that they are making a difference and establishing a legacy. They live in their own sheltered world but feel that their work captures what life is like for those not in their social sphere. One could almost feel sympathy for Portia and Joshua, if one did not understand that they are active participants in their own misery, thoroughly enjoying being caught up in their parents’ drama. It is no little amount of irony that Joshua is the most sensible in his family but considered the most problematic family member. Their treatment of Kate is similarly clichéd, with Lydia filling in the role of the tyrannical boss a la The Devil Wears Prada, Clarence the well-meaning buffer who also exploits the help for his own gains, Portia’s own demands of Kate as her personal maid, and Joshua’s lack of demands. Readers automatically know the struggles Kate will face and the lessons she is going to learn, leaving very little in the way of surprise.Speaking of lessons learned, it is astonishing at just how little Kate does learn about herself and about others. While she understands that she is being manipulated by the entire Schell family, she never truly learns to stand up for herself. She lets others make decisions for her, and only until events unfold will she make a resolution and take a stand. Even her choice to leave Paris is not necessarily hers but rather forced upon her based on previous events. Kate is a bit too passive for such a novel.Ms. Reyl, for all her efforts, fails to break new ground or create a lasting character in her debut novel. Even though there have been many coming-of-age stories over the centuries, many have been done memorably well. Lessons in French is not one of them, as there is an overt lack of originality to the plot and to the characters that prevents it from standing apart from other similar stories. In addition, Kate’s distinct lack of boldness defeats the purpose of the entire story, as the main character in a coming-of-age novel should actually learn something about herself rather than follow in others’ wakes. Even the Parisian backdrop is lacking, as the focus of Kate’s Paris experiences revolves more around food and less about the other elements of the city. In other words, Lessons in French is a major disappointment.
    • 3/5
      In notes and letters the author, Hilary Reyl, states that Lessons in French is her, “love letter to Paris”. Although this is a kitschy statement, her affection for Paris is sincere and self-evident. Reyl incorporates various celebrated landmarks, artists, and works of art and literature important to France, in the daily lives of her characters. The reader feels enveloped by the city’s cultural wealth, beauty and history. Reyl’s characters are rich with personality, as odd, dishonorable, egotistical or well-natured as they may be. Each character seems to symbolize one of the internal struggles the young protagonist is dealing with, in this coming of age novel. The above areas are so effectively covered that, midway through the novel, I was not certain if I was enjoying the novel itself or its references to all things art. Likewise, I questioned whether it was the eccentric characters I was more captivated by or the actual story-line. Another area of concern I found was within the narrative. The narrative refers to structuralism in literature, intent and content within photojournalism, self actualization, Balzac’s Human Comedy, and other academic subjects. However, Reyl resolves her story by switching to a sentimental path - the protagonist knew her experience was profound and that she would understand it better in the years to come. After all of the enticements mentioned above, the reader is hoping to learn something more unique and sophisticated from this book. It felt like a major switch in direction. The author started out using edifying literary devices and ended in the young adult fiction genre. Lessons in French is not without appeal. Had it kept on its original path, it would have been a superb, full-bodied read instead of an ordinary, good read.
    • 4/5
      A quaint debut novel with a coming of age theme for Kate, a 22 year old graduate of Yale who takes a job in Paris working for a famed photographer. As Lydia's assistant, Kate is asked to run errands as well as help Lydia organize her work. Kate is drawn into the family dramas throughout the year she lives in Paris. Lydia and Clarence have marital issues but the suspicion is that it's nothing new in that family. Their daughter, Portia, appears to Kate to be a spoiled rich kid. But that opinion is formed before they even meet. Portia's boyfriend, Olivier, is the only person at the house when Kate arrives, and she falls hard for him. The experiences that Kate has while living in France teach her about herself and about the differences in people.I did like the story, but I did not love it.
    • 3/5
      It's 1989, and a young American girl, just graduated from Yale and interested in finding her own artistic path, lands a job as an assistant to a famous American photographer living in Paris. What follows is a coming of age story, as Kate is first infatuated by the photographer's family and willing to do anything for them, no matter how morally questionable , and then gains insight into herself and the nature of family.
    • 4/5
      Lessons in French is a bit like a Devil Wears Prada story as we follow a young woman, Kate, in her first job as an assistant to a powerful and mercurial photographer in Paris. As a Yale grad, her vision of this job falls far from the reality. At times she is the artistic assistant and at other times she is the dog walker. Kate Is often placed in the middle of a family drama and must tiptoe around all of the eccentricity and turmoil. Her need to please is a trait that she discovers can be a hindrance in her situation. One of the more appealing relationships that Kate develops is with her cousin Etienne as she resolves her past relationship with him and his family. Hilary Reyl provides us with a well-defined cast of characters but it takes the entire story to discover all of their attributes and intricacies. It was enjoyable finding this out.
    • 3/5
      I had been looking forward to this book and was pleased with the setting in Paris. However the city was my favorite character in this novel and one of the very few I liked. This novel was in the same vein as The Devil Wears Prada and The Nanny Diaries however it fell kind of flat. In this novel like those others there is a young woman starting out after college taking some job that will be a "tide me over" or a "connection builder" until she can figure out what she wants to do with her life. However unlike the others Katie does not start off with a strong sense of self and realize the absurdity of her surrounding before becoming "one of them". She is instantly swept up and enamored by this crazy woman and her family. She doesn't ever really seem to realize that she is being treated poorly or that this will not actually make her more prepared or well connected in the future. Her lack of ability to call out her employer or stand up for her self or show character growth even on the last page was a bit of a disappointment.
    • 3/5
      I really wanted to like this book much more than I did. I received it as an early review book from Library Thing. I think that Reyl is an above average writer but I just couldn't get into the characters. Lydia, especially, was so unlikeable - and I think she was suppose to be but I ended up not really caring anything about her. Clarence wasn't much better. Olivier was introduced in such a slip shod fashion that I kept going back to see if I had missed reading something about him. I understood Kate's devotion to Lydia because she so wanted to be in Paris and wanted to be relevant to Lydia but after awhile it just got to be too much. I have a daughter who would be a few years younger that Kate and perhaps it would appeal more to that generation.
    • 5/5
      In 1989 as the Berlin wall is about to fall and Salmon Rushdie's life has just been upended by a fatwa, Kate, a recent Yale graduate, is in Paris working as the personal assistant for a talented but self-centered photographer who is trying to capture the shifting zeitgeist on film. Lessons in French takes an inside look at the artistic, intellectual, and political circles of Paris during the late part of the last century, which would make it interesting even if that were all it had to offer, but it wasn’t what kept driving me back to the book whenever I had a free moment. What was most compelling for me was how well author Hilary Reyl captures the personalities of her characters, particularly Kate though many of the people in the book are fascinating. Seeing the world through Kate’s first person narrative reminded me of what it’s like to be young and trying to find your footing. Kate is still figuring out who she is, what she believes, and how she should act. Though highly educated she’s too young to know the world well, so when she’s thrust into a new situation with people unlike those she has met in the past, she enjoys her expanding horizons but sometimes makes missteps forcing her to question her preconceptions and choices. Having Kate’s growing awareness come about in a cultural Mecca like Paris made the book irresistible for me.
    • 3/5
      hmmm...I'm not sure how I feel about this book. Paris was definitely the best character. The worst was Lydia and family. The major plot line felt like "The Devil Wears Prada" reading Proust and eating artichokes and croissants. I couldn't understand the wealthy family and they seemed more like cardboard cartoons. That may have been the point because Kate also didn't seem to understand them at all. But the more realistic coming-of-age plot line about Kate, her college friend and her cousin made up for the rest of the book. I also liked that it was set in 1989.
    • 1/5
      Having been to Paris, I recognized some of the places that were described by Kate. But, I just became bored with the story and couldn't relate to anyone in it. Maybe there was too much description. I don't know, but when I started chapter 22 I found that I just didn't care to find out where the story was going. Maybe I will go and read the last chapter. Sorry. Wanted to give a good review of the book as I received it from Librarything for early review.
    • 4/5
      Paris is not a city that attracts me, yet it does fascinate me. It's not a place I long to go (one brief visit in the 1970's has allowed me to say I've been there), but it's a city I do love to read about. Whether historical, twentieth century, or current, the nuances of culture never cease to give much to contemplate. Hilary Reyl has managed to capture a believable Paris of 1989-90 and present it to her readers, along with tasty morsels of the time: the fall of the Berlin Wall, Salman Rushdie (Satanic Verses era), how Parisian women really stay thin, kirs, a compelling circle of characters, and of course, cuisine.The story is billed loosely as a coming of age novel, which really sells it short, because I found it to be a fascinating character study, with Paris itself one of the characters to study. Kate, a recent Yale graduate, has the opportunity to work as the assistant to Lydia, a famous American photographer, living in Paris. Kate had lived briefly in Paris as a girl, and speaks the language beautifully. While the job bubbles with opportunities to mix with the famous, and be a part of a cutting edge culture, Lydia and her family serve up a somewhat toxic brew of personal pathologies and pathos. Kate must find a balance as well as find herself. She still has family in the city, has a group of young aristocrats and royals she runs with, as well as the conflicted personalities that come her way, courtesy of Lydia's family.There were times when Kate's hormones led her astray, where I wanted to give her a shake to help her think straight, but that's part of what coming of age is all about. The thing that kept me glued to the pages here were the glimpses of Paris that emerged, the slices of life not known to those who have only visited, (whether in person or via a book) -- a little of the underbelly, so to speak. It rang so true that I feel certain Reyl knows her stuff, and weaves it in a clear, confident manner, into the story of Kate and her time in Paris.Thank you to LibraryThing's Early Reviewer Program and the publisher for sending me this AR copy to read. The book comes out March 5, 2013.(3.5 rounded up to 4 stars)
    • 3/5
      Kate is an American who spent much of her childhood in France. Her boss, Lydia Schell, is an American photographer working out of Paris, who requires an assistant. Kate becomes embroiled in the soap opera-esque drama of the Schell family, none of which quite resonates as believable or relatable. This novel also relies on the historic events of the time as Lydia captures the falling of the Berlin Wall and forges a relationship with Salman Rushdie, as he faces the fatwa. However, these events serve only as background discussion and really don't further the story or frame the characters, which seems a strange miss.I must confess that I love a novel where the location is as much a character as the characters, and Paris makes a great character. Ms. Reyl seems to know her Paris; we travel through the neighborhoods, visit the museums and sample some delicious chestnut croissants during the course of this novel. It's a wonderful escape, but it's just not quite enough to make for a terrific read.
    • 4/5
      If you throw Paris or France in a title, you can know that I will probably seek this book out and give it a read. And I will probably like it, no matter how badly written it is. I just like reading about Paris. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that I found this book. And it shouldn’t be a surprise that I read it. Nor will it be a surprise that I liked it. But I’ll go a little farther with this book. You might like it, too. Turns out that author Reyl writes as if she has lots of actual experiences in France, which is lovely. Paris and good writing, then. Yes, you might like it. Even if you aren’t wild about France.
    • 4/5
      After graduating from the Yale class of 1989, callow (but by no means mindless) aspiring artist Kate moves to Paris to work for a famous photographer. Hilary Reyl's Lessons in French portrays Kate as a believable people-pleaser who starts to come into her own while carefully trying to navigate day-to-day life under the employ of narcissistic, manipulative Lydia Schell. In the letter that was enclosed with the ARC, Reyl states, “My own post college experience parallels Kate’s. I lived in Paris and learned to find my way in a complicated constellation of people and influences. It was a heady time and I do feel it was an important rite of passage in a singular moment of European history.” All of this was successfully reflected in the novel.With its beautifully written descriptions of Parisian life and its eclectic cast of characters, I found myself devouring this book. I look forward to reading more of Hilary Reyl’s work.

    Book preview

    Lessons in French - Hilary Reyl

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