Petite Anglaise

This book certainly generated discussion even if nobody really liked it. There was some misunderstanding as to where Catherine Sanderson was really coming from, but the general consensus was that she was a rather unsympathetic character and that it didn't really count as a particularly literary piece of work. she was felt to be intelligent but rather fickle and self-indulgent. I felt that there were moments of good writing, such as the description of the three of them in the lift mirror and the drawing together of the end of her relationship with James. I think it's the pitfall of this form (blog/diary), for her to be seen as too wrapped up in her own emotions. She was also quite far removed from her original experiences in that this is the book about the blog so she'd already distilled, edited and analysed her feelings at least once. Maybe her intelligence did her a disservice and she's too articulate and self-aware to come across as genuine. I'm not sure, because I didn't take to her but I can't decide why. Reality TV in book form was one of the comments and I think that's very accurate. One thing we all wondered about was whether she had made much effort to actually repair her relationship with Mr. Frog - it doesn't come across in the book. Her Paris wasn't very vivid to me - we obviously lived in very different parts - and there's certainly not much reference to life in France and dealing with the French system. This might have helped to balance out the book somewhat, and make her seem slightly less self-centered.