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I picked up The Paper Girl of Paris by Jordyn Taylor on a whim because it was the book that was at the Barnes & Noble Starbucks for $5 with a coffee order. I love a good WWII fiction book and I am enjoying reading from all perspectives of the war.

The Paper Girl of Paris was fantastic. I really enjoyed reading it. I am a sucker for dual-timeline. I am an even bigger sucker for time-preserved mystery apartments that haven’t been touched in decades. There were just a few things that got on my nerves that kept this book from being a five star read.

Alice’s grandmother leaves her an apartment in Paris that the family knew nothing about. From there it is a discovery of a part of Alice’s grandmother Chloe’s life that her family was unaware of. Alice had a great-aunt Adalyn. As Chloe never spoke of her sister, no one knew what had become of Adalyn or where she might be.

In the background of this story is the underlying effects of mental illness. Alice is a pretty smart kid and I find it difficult to believe that in today’s age an intelligent and in touch teenager wouldn’t recognize the signs of it in a family member. Normally this wouldn’t bother me except that it was talked about at length and Alice was unable to put the puzzle pieces together. It was mentioned so often that it was a little overused and I’d find myself getting annoyed with Alice.

One thing that really bothers me in life is learning about a small facet of someone’s life and then deciding to write that person off entirely without trying to even figure out the context of the situation. Sure most of the time it’s probably that the person is showing who they are but sometimes there is so much more below the surface appearance of a situation. Due to my frustration with Alice and some of her family’s reactions and thought processes I couldn’t give The Paper Girl of Paris a full five stars.

The story was hard. The more I learn about WWII and the people who lived through it, the more my heart hurts for them. The Paper Girl of Paris gave me a new perspective on the war for the citizens of France and taught me about a few of the events that happened there during that time.