One Summer in Paris by Sarah Morgan

#Book_Review #Friendship #Summer #Womanhood #Love #Thoughts #Bookstagram

A first try only ...! Please Share Your Guidelines on how to be better.. Thanks..!

Grace is a woman of her to-do list…!! Yup ...you heard me right..! She is a planner.Every smallest task of her life, including her husband and daughter is planned by her. Every big or small event she plans and measures with very accurate invisible measurement scale of her.Grace Is planning to give a surprise anniversary gift to her childhood best friend, husband of 25 years .A trip to Paris… She has planned every smallest detail of the trip.. She has spent a fortune of her one year savings just for this trip of two… what she didn’t plan on making this trip alone on her own…! Where she will meet her teenage lover ...orcan be acclaimed as a summer fling.. Phillipe .who happens to be a renowned pianist, a bohemian…. An unfinished business between two.

Audrey, a 17 years girl with an alcoholic mother at home has been dreaming off to leave london when her school finishes. A cherry on the top she is dyslexic which makes it tougher for her to read and write. It seems like the alphabet starts dancing infront of her eyes whenever she tries to read.Her best friend Meena always tries to be on her side at her best but that's not enough for an alone 17 years old. She has to play the role of the mother for her mom. She had a lonely childhood always maintaining herself and her mother. Her mother never showed up for her school meetings or made coffee before the exam night let alone warm breakfast in the morning. It's she who has to sober up her mom in the morning when she gets back home late at night at home being drunk. She saw her mom getting married 4 times and saw the husbands leaving her mom for when they could not deal with her shit any more. Audrey couldn’t leave bound by the invisible bond of blood..which only she can feel..point to be noted!.

Audrey works at a hair salon on her weekends to spend less time at home as well as earn some pocket money. She is saving each penny of her earning so that she can go to Paris this upcoming Summer. Paris the city of arts, love, dreams hopes and lights.. May she find the light for her life to remove it’s darkness..!!!

Mimi, Graces grandmother , a female photographer, a single mother of her time, a lover, a charming lady with her charisma and bold movements considered in her era. She never thought about what people would say in making life choices. She did what her mind wanted her to do no one could persuaded her to do anything. That's why she left the love of her life in Paris at her young age… didn’t disclosed the sign of their sweet nights living in her womb… She gave birth and raised on her own that child single handedly. There are decisions she regretted But while sitting at her old age home she still can dance and lure men of her age and can scream with full breath…”Life is colourful” But she gathered strength to cross half of the world , to Paris again to relive again her fierce , exciting , mesmerised days of love in the small bookshop of Paris.

Grace and David was a perfect couple until David gave her the biggest shock of her life..! Yes.. It was counted as biggest because her parents death or, Gracies chaotic childhood had a pattern.. She always thought that something may happen..at any time.. But David..! He was the calmness in the rough sea of her teenage and early childhood.. She had thought with David she will make the beautiful home, build the picture perfect family of Father -Mother -Daughter trio..which she has always dreamt of having in her childhood days. In David she had found her long lost home.. But David cheated with her.. Not only he cheated with her , he asked for a divorce from her on their 25th anniversary dinner...huh …!! how perfect the gift could be…!! David didn't feel a slight piece of guilt in his mind while cheating with Lissa who was his daughter Sophie’s friend..! He thought the most organized,, plaanenned, making everyone’s life easier Gracie was Boring…!! Grace was just a fade, a french teacher, mum come wife who is not exciting anymore.. For him at least he thought..!

David..In tall, blond, young,charismatic Lissa he found adventure. He thought Grace was making his life suffocating by doing everything for him. David wakes up, have hot , delicious ,warm food on his plate every morning,goes to work and gets back home. Grace makes everything he has to do by himself easier. Every reservations, buying gifts, anniversary, dates, meetings.. Everythings of his to-do list.. Is done by grace.

It’s not like David is careless or makes grace do all this..she does them with her own wish. David is a very sober man with broad shoulders, a firm back and deep blue eyes. A thin line of silver in his hairline and jaw makes him look more attractive. For a man of mid 40, one must say David has hidden his age very gracefully. Any woman would like to lean on those firm shoulders and smashed into his strong smooth chest. Every woman in this small towns neighbour corner is secretly jealous of Grace for having such a perfect family along with David as a husband.

In Paris, Grace and Audrey found each other where they help themselves to face their hidden part. They made each other do some work which needs a huge amount of courage for each of them..They looked out for each other, laughed and cried with each other ,became best friends of one another and gave themselves a new birth. Though at the end of the book it seems like they went back to their old life.. But no.. it was not the same .. maybe the people were the same because it’s family, commitment, bound by birth or law of the universe you can say that certain things are given in your life to deal with or to live with.. But they had turned those things a stroke of paint on the canvas of their lives. They have started pouring colour in their black and white life. And it all started with an unusual friendship of a teenage girl and a middle age woman..!

You can give it a read if you want to spend your lazy afternoons with some light words.. But it really shows the point of view of women of three generations. And one of the touched lines of the book for me are…

".... It was impossible to know

what you’d do until you were in that situation. Life was messy and complicated. And what was love if it wasn’t hanging on when things were tough? If a person meant enough to you, then surely love was

worth fighting for?.."

"...Marriage and happiness weren’t so easy to judge from

the outside.

A marriage was as individual as a person. What kept two people

together was different for every couple. There was no blueprint.

“It doesn’t matter what they think. It only matters what we think."