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Crossing On The Paris (2012)

by Dana Gynther(Favorite Author)

3.37 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

1451678231 (ISBN13: 9781451678239)

languge

English

genre

Historical Fiction

publisher

Gallery Books (Simon & Schuster Imprint)

review 1: Very low 3 stars; just can't give it more and until I was over half way through, I wouldn't have been able to give it more than 2 or 2 1/2. The end saved it for me. It became a much better novel once they all finally started to know and care about each other. This was picked for our book club and I really wanted to like it but it just started out way too slow for me and took forever to pick up. It was somewhat repetitious and just didn't keep my attention. There was something about the way it was written - poor word choice?, thin plot?, just not meaty enough for me?, I don't know, take your pick.I liked the descriptions of the "Paris"; never having been on an ocean liner, it gave me some insight into what the accommodations would be for each class. Since this was supposed... more to be 1921, I don't know how much that holds true today and I would certainly hope first class people wouldn't be as rude as they were to Julie when she was checking their hats - "soiling their clothes with her dirty hands".It's basically a story of three women and their friendships which has been written about many times and sometimes much better. It just didn't excite me - maybe I've been around too long and read too many books.Having said all that, the following quotes were quite good...Pg.104 Vera "Aging did not take place gradually, she sighed, but in sudden leaps, horrible jerks."Pg.274 Vera "Every family is so complex and so difficult to understand."Pg.303 "SPOILER" Vera's death - "The doctor said it wasn't a painful death. He said she just 'stopped'."I didn't like Nikolai from the beginning; oily Russian-too smooth but did like the way he signed his letter - "A Kiss". The rape scene and it's aftermath was quite ugly.Pg.297 Serge has another emergency-he is called because an engineman is down with a broken leg. I hoped it was NIKOLAI and in an interview the author does say that she did mean it to be him-she felt she had to get even with him.Introspective, character driven plot which are often rather slow.
review 2: Formulaic, sentimental and repetitive. I had much higher hopes for this than I suppose I should have. The setting is aboard the "Paris"'s maiden voyage in 1921, from France's La Havre harbor to New York city's Ellis Island. While I appreciated the accurate details of what was aboard the ocean liner, including the discrepancies between the first, second and steerage classes, the intersecting stories of the women themselves were tedious. A majority of each section (switching between the women, Vera, Constance and Julie) is the women staring at photographs, simple remembering their past and longingly wishing for something different. Each section seemed a repetition of the previous, and by the end I was fed up with the characters' stereotypical female sentimentalities. The women all meet of course and share their stories, feeling like so much more than the complete strangers they are--chick lit with a historical fiction mask. less

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