Cinq jours à Paris
Cinq jours à Paris
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Last year, I tried reading another book by Danielle Steel called “The toxic bachelor” and to be honest, I couldn't get past page 10. The thing is Steel puts too much effort into the background in order to be done with it the first 50 pages while as I read other books, the background was put by the author all along the book and not all at once in a certain place. That defect made me get bored from the first 30 pages in this book, too. The first 30 pages were dedicated entirely to the background without any exciting event. Too much details like giving too much credibility to her books. Sometimes the reader doesn't care that much about these details. They make him bored. And that's what happened with me.
When reading the toxic bachelor last year, I was struck by the materialistic nature Steel possesses. And it was repeated in this book too. All throughout the book, I could visibly touch the materialistic and unrealistic side of everything she mentionned. Any reader of hers can easily classify her as those Beverly Hills rich people who have never in their lives dropped a sweat, or ever saw a poor man.
Steel in this book have made her two main characters rich. People who possess infinite money under themselves. They would talk of million of dollars like chocolate bars, not more. Even if she made Peter, the successful scientist, a person who was raised on a ranch among a poor family, that made her piece of writing seem more and more materialistic and even biased. To her, the Beverly-hills lady, all people raised on a ranch would be poor. It didn't cross her mind that it might actually be a matter of choice... maybe a person liked doing that.
The other part that showed her prejudices was when a fire was ignited at the Ritz (see!) and she made her characters blame the Arabic King who was staying at the hotel with his three wives and laid the possibility of a bomb. She even made them go running away from the hotel and into their car and made them never to be seen again.
On the other hand, her “love” story was too unrealistic. Too impossible. Frankly, I am not sure about other people, but even when I am reading pure fiction, I LOVE to touch the realistic side in it, and that's what I do in my own writings. This story had no realistic side. Not at all. It was too impossible even without the vampires, werewolves, revenants, or wizards. It was too impossible. I mean, two people falling in love after two days of acquaintance, and then just after that, after just five days they spent together, wanting to dump their families and husband or wife because of this small encounter? Too unbelievable. And honestly, I wouldn't have spent that much time and effort on it if I knew this more the beginning.
One last defect is that Steel talks too much between conversations. It is like two people are conversing, she has to go around writing a full page paragraph after one sentence, and before knowing what the reply of the other person was... which made the whole book more and more dull.
After all, I did a little like the book. There were certain places where I could read 10 pages without even feeling a thing. Yes, I enjoyed some parts, but I would never recommend this book to anyone. I don't regret reading it, because I don't like prejudices or prejudgments. I wanted to taste more of Steel's work to know exactly why is she getting all the fame. But I would never ever, not after this book, find myself reading again one of her works.