Personal Rating: 5 Stars Goodreads Rating: 4.02 Content Rating: PG-13 Trigger Warnings: Depictions of war (WWII) and some violence. Joshua Pearl comes from a world that we no longer believe in — a world of fairy tale. He knows that his great love waits for him there, but he is stuck in an unfamiliar time and place — an old-world marshmallow shop in Paris on the eve of World War II. As his memories begin to fade, Joshua seeks out strange objects: tiny fragments of tales that have already been told, trinkets that might possibly help him prove his own story before his love is lost forever. (goodreads.com) This, like Raybearer, was a book for the book club I do with some of my coworkers. We are reading a book from a different country every month and for May we did France. This book was originally written in French and I was a little apprehensive to read it at first as some reviews said that they thought it didn’t make as much sense in English. However, though it was a bit confusing at first due to the alternating points of view and scrambled timeline, it didn’t take long for me to sort things out and get wrapped up in the story. I actually liked this story so much when I finished it that I shelved it next to Inkheart and The Thief Lord (if you know me then you know how high of an honor that is). The Book of Pearl is a wonderful mixture of fairy tale, historical fiction, and contemporary fantasy. There are three different stories going on in this book. The story of a fairy tale inspired land, the story of a young man in World War II, and the story of a different young man with a camera (in more modern times). It takes a little while to sort out who is who, especially if you go into the book fairly blind as I did, but I’d say by the end of Part One everything is pretty clear. If you are looking for a book that delves deep into the characters emotions, this is not that. It is told more like a fairytale than a novel, but I still feel like you get to know all of the important players in it, just not necessarily through their thoughts on the events. Because of the unique way that it is told, I feel that it would make for an excellent movie. For real. If anyone reading this is in the movie industry (ha) and the author agrees, can we, uh, can we get on that, please? I don’t know if it would make a lot of money or not, but I just want it. But not Disney. They’d ruin it (like they did with a certain other book-to-movie adaptation). Thanks. Good talk. If you are someone who likes beautiful writing, fairies, fiction set during World War II, a freaking marshmallow shop, or adventure, then I recommend you give this book a shot. I may or may not have stayed up until 1:30am to finish it because I was so enchanted by it. And I may have hugged it when I was done with it. You know, just normal stuff. Well, I’m off to eat a bag full of marshmallows and pretend they are as fancy as the ones in this book. Thanks for reading! I’ll see you next time! Image source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34877733-the-book-of-pearl
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