Review of Dorm in Paris

[Rebecca De Figueiredo]

[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Dorm in Paris" by Paula Gabay.]

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4 out of 5 stars

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Title: Dorm in Paris
Author: Paula Gabay

This short novel is full of personality. It attacks the reader from all angles, bringing pleasure, curiosity, confusion, and clarity as the pages go on: it's a complex little read. Sometimes, it is nightmarish, occasionally dreamlike. At times, my mind reeled into a kind of 'brain fog'. We meet Freesia Guludec, who lives with her husband, Olivio, in the idyllic and peaceful Orchid Village.

Freesia is not conctent. She needs to find some peace, which she seems to have lost as a teenager when living in a dorm for students at the Ile Saint Louis in Paris. An opportunity for her to revisit this dorm and find inner peace arises when she is invited to go to Paris to create an e-book for The Honorine and Barnabe Bordenave Foundation. During her time in Paris, she meets new people and has strange experiences, but she does find inner renewal and freedom. She becomes close to Racheli, an older woman, who helps her in her journey to 'find herself'.

There is some delightful descriptive prose, such as the following:

'The beautiful Seine, with its subtle hollow reflections..'

At times, the words and phrases seemed quite strange. I feel that perhaps this is because her French has been translated straight into English with no subtle editing.

I found no grammatical errors besides the 'French straight into English' thing. This is a lovely book to read over a weekend, as it is better to read quickly rather than over a period of weeks to catch its quirky tone and feel. It's a feminine book and would suit adult women. I enjoyed the book despite having to go back and re-read passages I didn't understand at first. It did not have the drama and charisma of a perfect novel, and I was sometimes confused. Because of these reasons, I will award it four stars out of five.

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Dorm in Paris
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[Louis Donald]

The quirky tone and the journey to self-discovery in Paris sound intriguing, but I’m not sure if the confusing parts would work for me. I might skip this one, even though it seems like a charming read for the right mood.