There has been a lot of novels published about WWII recently, particularly about the ways women served as spies, cryptographers, aviators or were just caught up in the war in many unexpected ways. The Huntress, The Nightingale, The Alice Network, and Transcription are all books about women in WWII that I have reviewed in the last year or so. With so many books set in the same historic period it is often difficult for a new book to stand out or differentiate itself from the others, but The Paris Library manages to do just that! 

Odile Souchet has finally managed to land her dream job; a position with the American Library in Paris! Her parents are not happy about this at all, especially her father, who as a ranking police officer has been bringing home young men from work to meet her, hoping that she will give up on her dreams and get married. But Odile is ambitious, and has dreams beyond what a woman living in 1939 Paris could actually hope to achieve.

Lilly, knows her mother is dying. She can tell by the way the doctor and her father talk that her mother is not going to get better, but she still hopes that she is wrong. In this strange between time, Lilly makes a new friend with an older woman who lives across the street. She interviewed her for a school assignment on France and after that they became friends. Lilly feels comfortable with this elderly woman who married a local man, a soldier she met in Paris soon after the war, and then moved to the US more than 40 years ago. Like her elderly neighbor, Lilly, too, often feels like a stranger in a strange land despite having lived in this small town in Montana all her life. 

As Lilly gets to know her neighbor she discovers they both share a love of books and language. She also finds that her neighbor has a mysterious past that just may offer an answer to her own feelings of displacement and jealousy.

Beautifully written, Charles offers us a glimpse into a part of history that is not well known. She has also managed to capture an intergenerational friendship that feels real and intimate.  This novel is an ode to books, to learning and to the immense value of libraries as a quiet place in the middle of a storm as well as a powerful weapon against hatred, lies and fascism. Something we too are beginning to understand in the aftermath of an attempted political coup and the misinformation and lies that have been spread to support it. 

Brenda’s Rating: ****(4 Out of 4 Stars)

Recommend this book too? Sharon, Keith, Marian and Lauren.

Book Study Worthy? Yes!

Read in library ebook format.