The story begins in Paris with a man named Jacques and his wife Mathilda, one quiet and nervous to speak out and the other like a short fuse, ready to make herself heard when necessary. Jacques finally achieves his dream of acquiring a small, peaceful bookshop when one day, his life is disrupted and becomes anything but that. He soon learns about the French revolutionaries, whom he despises at first for being so outrightly against the Nazi soldiers, but later understands their reasons and joins them by acting as a safe house for Jewish refugees and Allied soldiers.
80 years later, a woman named Juliette with French ancestry leaves the States for a vacation in Paris to search for a hidden plaza depicted in her late grandmother’s favorite painting. Once there, she finds out her husband was cheating on her, and decides to stay in Paris to start a new life for herself. While searching for an apartment to stay in, she meets many new friends (one of which has an old apartment ready for renting) and slowly adjusts to life in Paris. She soon finds an old bookstore below the old apartment with a secret room and a diary inside, describing people of all ages and backgrounds in its pages…
I really love this book and would most definitely recommend it to a historical fiction enthusiast. The author, Daisy Wood, takes the reader back and forth between the World War 2 time period and “present-day” Paris and effectively shows each character’s way of thinking and their reasoning for acting the way they do. Wood also takes her time to show just how heavy the tension was between some Parisian citizens and German soldiers, while also showing that just because someone is on a “bad” or “good” side, doesn’t mean that they are “evil” or “good”.
The Forgotten Bookshop by Daisy Wood is available to check out from the Mission Viejo Library. It is also available to download for free from Libby.
Mission Viejo Library Teen Voice 