Paper Girl of Paris

3.5 stars
I'm having a hard time to properly rate this book. It was beautiful, without a doubt. But I expected even more of it? I loved LOVED Adaline's storyline, it was so empowering, beautiful, intense and sad to read. Alice was just an okay character for me. I felt like the romance was unnecessary in one of the storylines. Overall, this was a solid story.

Alice and her parents are in Paris. Alice's grandmother has passed away, and she has left an apartment in Paris to Alice. The apartment has been abandoned since WWII. Why? And why did her grandmother never speak of the apartment or her life before she came to live in America? Alice discovers photos in the apartment and learns that her grandmother had a sister, Adalyn, who was never mentioned.

The story alternates between the present time and the time of the Nazi occupation in France, between Alice's investigation of her aunt's role in the war and Adalyn's struggles during the occupation.

The events of the two stories are carefully plotted out, and the terrible events of the war are shared in a way that retains the horror of the events but sanitizes the events for younger readers.