FINALLY!

I finally finished The Last Time I Saw Paris by Lynn Sheene. Work has a been slamming us so I haven't read as much as usual. I feel like it's taken me 2 months to finish this but I was finally able to finish it up this weekend. It's set in 1940 when Claire Harris flees her glamourous life in Manhattan to start over in Paris. What she didn't plan on was Nazi soldiers marching in France. She takes a job at local flower shop under a sophisticated Parisian florist. Claire begins to aid the French Resistance in exchange for false identity papers to kept her in France. While things begin to unravel in Paris, Claire shows bravery and intelligence and above all loyalty to the French Resistance. But deception and betrayal force her to flee once more and fight for the man she loves. 

I really enjoyed this book. At first I thought it started off slow and was wondering where exactly it was heading. Claire begins a naive journey to Paris to follow a lover and ends up getting mixed up in WWII. She starts off as a silly tourist girl wanting romance in Paris but ends as a head-strong brave woman. Her charactered is developed so well; you can really see her grow through her struggles. The focus of this book was the Germans in France. It barely touches on the Jews/Holocaust (which is my favorite topic). I've really enjoyed reading about France during WWII. I honestly didn't know it was THAT bad in France. This put America into prospective. You come to fall in love with Madame Palain, the florist that takes her in. Claire goes to Paris illegally with no money or plans with a dream of love. It definitely does not turn out like you would expect. Once she begins aiding the French Resistance, the story starts to unfold. It wasn't until the end that I realized the seriousness of going against the German army in Paris. It's so scary to think what was actually going on and how many people were killed during the war. This is probably one of my favorite WWII books. But I have to wonder why Claire was so loyal to France and didn't go back to America where it was safe when the war began. 

While we're on the topic...

I watched Sarah's Key, which was a book by Tatiana de Rosnay. It's been in my instant queue on Netflix for a while and I couldn't decide if I wanted to watch it or not because I loved the book so much. This is another book about WWII but focuses on the roundup of Jews in Paris by the French police. This book was mind blowing and the movie was just as good. As a warning, it is a foreign film so a lot of it was in French with subtitles but it wasn't hard to follow. What actually surprised me was that the movie was exactly like the book. Everything was in the same order and no details were changed. I absolutely LOVED that because it NEVER happens. I'm so glad I finally decided to watch it. The actresses who played Sarah's mother and older Sarah were downright beautiful, I was amazed! Young Sarah was an amazing actress for her age. I was blown away by her performance. This was my first foreign film I've watched and it was awesome. I would recommend everyone watch it. It should be shown in school for history class along with Schinlder's List (that's what we watched when we learned about WWII). Another warning: the book AND movie were extremely sad and depressing, not that WWII is a joyous subject anyway. I cried through both :/. The Last Time I saw Paris was not sad, more dramatic/thrilling. Tell me your thoughts!