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Lessons From Madame Chic: The Top 20 Things I Learned While Living In Paris (2000)

by Jennifer L. Scott(Favorite Author)

3.47 of 5 Votes: 6

ISBN

0615552935 (ISBN13: 9780615552934)

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

review 1: This is really just a silly little book. I picked it up because I wanted to read more about the capsule wardrobe. Unfortunately, there is not much, a few pages, maybe, on the concept. And nothing about how to go about creating a capsule. I like her ideas about living life fully and being present in every moment, but that was overshadowed by the constant idolizing of all things French. The huge sweeping generalizations of how French people live and why it is better than what we do here in America got very tiresome. No, I'm not going to serve a 3 course meal complete with apertifs every evening and I doubt that most French people do this either. But that doesn't make the way they do it superior to my way - but that is definitely the feeling I left with. I did chuckle at one ... morepoint she recommends not becoming a snob, then in the very next paragraph says "you will not want to put anything in your closet that isn't of the best quality." I think she has failed the snob test. I think the underlying ideas are good ones, but the heavy handed idolization of all things French and the snobby attitude soured this little book for me.
review 2: Ok, so drink water, eat mindfully, incorporate exercise into your daily life. Fine. Enjoy good things in moderation, watch a bit less tv. Yep. But the fixation on silk blouses? And what if I don't LIKE ballet and opera? And what if I don't want to make fruit tarts and my husband doesn't smoke a pipe? I liked this book less and less the more I read it; at first because I didn't care for Famille Chic's rigid, formal lifestyle, and then because the writer repeatedly used the word "quotidian" while repeatedly stating she was afraid of looking pretentious. There is nothing wrong with "daily" as a word to describe something that happens each day. And I don't care how French it is, I just don't care that much about Sunday night being facial night. less

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