After reading reading ‘Me Before You’ by this author, I couldn’t help but go on a Jojo Moyes books shopping spree….
I decided to start with this one ( a collection of short stories) while nursing my wounds from my last read.
‘Paris For One and Other Stories’ is a collection of ten stories with two novellas (Paris For One and Honeymoon in Paris) and eight short stories.
In typical Jojo Moyes style, the characters are relatable, the writing is great and cleverly laced with a lot of humor even in the worst circumstances. The stories follow a general theme of troubled love relationships told from the perspective of the women at different stages in the relationship cycle – dating, newly weds, happily married, unhappily married, newly divorced, etc.
My favorite stories were the two novellas: ‘Paris For One’ and ‘Honeymoon in Paris’, not necessarily because they were longer stories but because I found them really interesting, witty and entertaining. Other Stories in the collection that stuck for me are ‘Crocodile Shoes’ ( a woman whose life changes because of a pair of shoes that she mistakenly acquires), ‘Margo’ ( a newly divorced woman on her way home to break the news to her parents and her uplifting encounter with an elderly American woman) and ‘The Christmas List’ (An unhappily married woman who is shown amazing generosity by a taxi driver). My least favorite was ‘Holdups’ which I felt was a bit too far fetched and flat. The rest of the stories I thoroughly enjoyed and I have a strong feeling I would read this collection again in the near future
If you want a quick read and you love women fiction with a bit of humor, you will love this collection. I rate it a 4 stars and I highly recommend it for a good relaxing reading experience.
Published: October 18th, 2016 by Pamela Dorman Books
Pages: 274
Genre: Fiction (Short Stories/ Novella)
Purchase @ www.amazon.com/parisforone
The Author: Jojo Moyes is a British novelist. Moyes studied at Royal Holloway, University of London. She won a bursary financed by The Independent newspaper to study journalism at City University and subsequently worked for The Independent for 10 years. In 2001 she became a full time novelist. Moyes’ novel Foreign Fruit won the Romantic Novelists’ Association (RNA) Romantic Novel of the Year in 2004. She is married to journalist Charles Arthur and has three children.
