A Review of All the Flowers in Paris by Sarah Jio

 Give me a minute to wipe my eyes and blow my nose because this book made me bawl like a baby. I hope I didn’t get too many tears on my local library’s copy of this book. All the Flowers in Paris by Sarah Jio is both a heart-wrenching and heart-warming story of family, resilience, and grief. 

Now before I go any further in my book, let me just throw my porch door open to let the 10:30 pm breeze in because I forgot just how hot a house can get in the summer when baking! Though, I won’t say that my mini loaves of chocolate chip banana bread aren’t going to be worth the heat, because they most definitely are!

Rating: ⅘ stars

Connected across time, this is a story of how two women are able to be resilient in some of their darkest moments. 

Having fled to Paris to escape her past life, Caroline is involved in an accident, causing her to lose her memories. Though, she can’t shake that she’s missing something. As she gets glimpses into the life she used to have, she yearns for it back. But Caroline also wants to look toward the future, a future that could involve the handsome restaurateur; Victor. As Caroline works to piece her memory together, she comes across a bundle of letters from another time. Never postmarked, they’re from a woman named Celine to her lover, Luc. 

Living in occupied Paris during WWII, Celine, her daughter, and her Papa are trying to fly under the radar. But all changes when somebody spills that they are part Jewish. From there, Celine watches the life she built spiral out of control. With plans to escape with papers from her fiance, the plan goes awry and Celine is forced to live and work for a brutal German soldier. But she hides a secret under her floorboards. Cosi, her young daughter has managed to escape and Celine has no choice but to hide her young daughter to the best of her ability, risking the life of not only herself, but also young Cosi and her unborn child. 

Working with a Sorbonne student, Caroline discovers that her life is more entangled with this daughter and mother more than she dared to imagine. And maybe, helping the student solve the mystery of the two will help her heal. 

***

A quick read, I was surprised to find myself so wrapped up in this book. I loved the format of it, switching between times and women as they both struggled and lived through some of the darkest moments of their lives. 

I found myself crying uncontrollably at the ending of the story for both of the women. For all that they both had loss. And I found myself silently cheering on Victor. Though it may have been not so great for him to have done what he had done, he loved Caroline so damn much, and there’s just something so special about that type of love and commitment, even after the both of them had been through hell and back. 

I’m glad that Caroline was able to regain her memory and thanks to the words Cosi had written as a child, eventually forgive her husband- Victor- and reunite with him after the death of their daughter. 

Though, I am saddened to see that there was no happy ending for Celine. Thankfully Cosi was found and later raised by Luc but after everything the woman went through, I couldn’t help but shed a tear over her demise. But in the end, she did all that she could to protect her daughter, even if that meant that Cosi had to live under the floor for nearly a year, right under the nose of a German soldier. 

If you’re looking for a book that’s a quick read and shows the resilience of women in both the present day and the past. This is one that I recommend for you. Though, I do advise that you keep a box of tissues handy for the ending because it will get you. And also maybe be at home when you’re reading the last third of the book because I made the mistake of reading it at the library and cried uncontrollably in public so that was nice. 

As always, my review on Goodreads can be found here.