The Paris Apartment – Book Review

Jess needs a fresh start. She’s broke and alone, and she’s just left her job under less than ideal circumstances. Her half-brother Ben didn’t sound thrilled when she asked if she could crash with him for a bit, but he didn’t say no, and surely everything will look better from Paris. Only when she shows up – to find a very nice apartment, could Ben really have afforded this? – he’s not there.

The longer Ben stays missing, the more Jess starts to dig into her brother’s situation, and the more questions she has. Ben’s neighbors are an eclectic bunch, and not particularly friendly. Jess may have come to Paris to escape her past, but it’s starting to look like it’s Ben’s future that’s in question.

The socialite – The nice guy – The alcoholic – The girl on the verge – The concierge

Everyone’s a neighbor. Everyone’s a suspect. And everyone knows something they’re not telling.

After reading Lucy Foley’s Guest List, I was so excited when I got the audiobook version of The Paris Apartment.

Just like The Guest List, there are multiple characters in this book–Jess, the sister of the missing person, Ben who comes to Paris to start a new life and moves into Ben’s apartment with weird people as neighbors (her opinion), The Concierge, an unnamed woman, who seemed to be having a past, Mimi, a young nineteen year old French woman and Sophie, an arrogant French woman and Nick, a friend of Ben. As Jess lives in the apartment and tries to find out what really happened to Ben, she finds so many dark secrets about the apartment…and the people who live in that apartment.

OK, so I am having some mixed feelings about the book. I feel you should read each and every word very carefully in this book to understand what is going on in the book. This sounded more like a gothic thriller to me–the eerie descriptions of the apartment, the cellar and attic, made me think if I was reading a gothic thriller more than a psychological thriller. The first part of the story was boring but then soon, it became fast paced with some twists and thrills along the way. Nonetheless, I felt the ending was OK–I kind of expected that ending however.

Jess’s character was OK but then other characters in my opinion seemed bland to me. But maybe that’s my opinion. The story kind of dragged on but then the interesting part happening by the middle of the book.

Anyway, this was not as good as Guest List in my opinion but it was OK. If you like a thriller with a creepy setting with a weird creepy family, then this book is one for you–worth 3.5 stars.