The Paris Apartment

Very good. Been a while since i read a mystery book that i was able to finish so i was happy to be hooked. Did not expect so much

Good for you, not for me!

this was really slow and only picked up about 50-60% of the way. wish i liked this more, but it felt like nothing was going on for most of the story. the characters were not as compelling as i hoped they would be, and the setting was okay. overall felt meh.

I liked this book much better than the Hunting Party or the Guest List. It still features an unlikable main character, but all the characters in the book were well fleshed out. An easy, light read.

I've eyed this beauty of cover since before it came out in Feb and I'm happy to say I got on reading it sooner than I would. It's a great claustrophobic, spooky mystery with hidden secrets and characters written and interwoven with mastery. Foley's ability to create such a concrete setting and distinguishable characters is one that dwarfs many authors, specifically in the purely mystery genre. The thrills and chills and mysteriousness of this novel caught me up, and I'll proudly say that I knew this was going to be a great book from page 1. Maybe even before that, because I mean...I'm loving this cover. And that's a big thing for me.

Enjoyed this one. I got hunting party and guest list on kindle to read of hers also.

I go between 1-2 kindle books and 3 paperbacks all depends on mode

Can do a book week if nothing gets in way or one a month is why planning

3.5 stars

I listened to the audiobook for this, and having a full cast and a different narrator for each character made the experience much more fun - the cast did a phenomenal job with their roles.
The book itself is slow, and I wish it were more fast paced.

All of the characters are flawed in some way, and not many of them are likable, but it was fun to do character analysises on them and theorize what happened and who played what part

I hated this book. Another anticipated read that made my eyes roll throughout. I am going to have to think twice before picking up another Lucy Foley book. All of them were just okay to plain bad. Sad face.

I fail to comprehend the purpose behind this book. It introduces a bunch of characters, but the explanation it provides is shallow. Many side characters come and go in the story without serving any real purpose. They appear briefly in a few chapters and then vanish without contributing much to the plot. I did manage to finish it quickly, but not because I enjoyed it. I just wanted to be done with it. ☹️

Probably closer to a 3.5 because the main character was not my favorite, but I was invested in finding out how this one was going to end!!

A bit of a slow burn but damn L.F. knows how to get you with the twists. The gloomy atmosphere was immaculate but the main character got a bit tedious at times. Or maybe she just felt a bit dumb at times.
I would give it a solid 3.5 stars: it has some problems but still worth a read!

Another knockout from Lucy Foley. Intricate plot with attention to detail and twists at the right moments. So so so good.

3.5 stars
Books, Coffee & Passion

Lucy Foley is the queen of unlikeable characters.

I enjoyed the creeping apartment building vibes, the secrets, the characters, the different POVs, and surprisingly the slow pace worked for me. The story did drag in the middle of the book and nothing interesting happened for a while.

The cast of narrators was great, and the audiobook made the story more enjoyable for me. I didn't see the final twist coming and I liked it a lot. There were some details that were definitely far-fetched, so there's that.

Overall, I had fun listening to it and trying to figure out what happened. An enjoyable and entertaining thriller.

This was an extremely slow read. Not much happens plot-wise until the end. I found the writing style to be very strange as well. The chapters were from many different perspectives but in those chapters we get both past and present points of view. Unfortunately, there is not a clear point where the flashbacks are obvious, and I found myself confused about where I was in time. I liked the missing person aspect, but when I got to the end and finally was piecing together what was happening, I really didn't like it. The direction this book took at the end was wild, and not in a good way. I'm proud of myself for finishing this and not giving up, but the end didn't have a great payoff or a jaw-dropping twist. I was thinking in the first half that I liked it better than The Guest List because of all the mystery, but it was definitely worse. But to be honest, I found The Guest List very overhyped so I'm thinking Lucy Foley just isn't for me. What I did love in this book were the short chapters, some even with cliffhangers. This made this slow book much more manageable. Longer chapters and I would have certainly DNF'd. 

3.5
Not the fast paced, twisty thriller I was looking for but still a great read nonetheless.
It was so slow at the beginning even tho we had VERY short chapters but after the 50% mark when things started getting revealed I got more into the story.
Like all the reviewers say, I suggest trying to read upto the 50% mark if it feels slow for u coz after that the reveals start happening pretty quickly.

The guest list is still my fav tho by Lucy Foley coz its one of the first thrillers I read aand one of my first 5 star reads.

Enjoyed this one much more than The Guest List.

Slow-ish with a tad of “only murders in the building” vibes.

Lucy Foley receives some very mixed reviews. There is no denying that her thrillers are very formulaic; there's a cast of characters who all have secrets that are slowly revealed throughout the novel until the reader discovers whodunnit.

Predictable? Maybe. But I always have a fun time.

The Paris Apartment follows Jess after she turns up in Paris (obviously!) to visit her brother at his apartment- but he has disappeared. We get POV's from the other, sometimes sinister, inhabitants of the building until a scandalous truth is revealed.

It's an easy read with enough twists and turns to keep me guessing. Perfect beach read material (where I happened to be when I read it).

Gewoon oké.
De toon is constant dreigend, terwijl dit in het merendeel van de tijd onnodig is. Wordt een beetje vervelend op den duur.
Ik had ook meteen door wat er gaande was, gezien ik al eens zoiets heb gelezen.
Zoals steeds als audioboek entertainend genoeg tijdens vervelende klusjes.

 i never really dnf books but this was putting me into a reading slump because of how little i cared about anything going on in this story. this shit was boring asf and nothing was going on. i have no desire to find out anything going on in this book tbh. i've been to paris and i love it there but besides the characters speaking french sometimes, this could have been placed in any major city and i wouldn't have blinked twice. 

It took me over a month to finish this book but the ending was soooo good

3.5 stars too bad the book only picks up around the 85% mark. The twist really took me by surprise, but there's nothing special about the writing and at times the story really drags.

I was so disappointed with this one, after enjoying the guest list so much I thought this was also going to be a 5 star read, but unfortunately it was not. It was fast paced, and the atmosphere was superb, but those were the only positives I managed to find. I guessed some of the reveals (which rarely happens as I am horrible at figuring things out), and even the ones I didn't see coming did not shock me one bit. I appreciate it trying to be more complex and not a straight forward mystery, but it just did not work for me. I can't really pinpoint what about it didn't work for me, I'm not sure if its because to me it felt very telenovela at times, or because the characters were so unlikable, or maybe I'm the problem. I'm not sure, but it wasn't a fun reading experience. I still can't get over Ben as a character, I've met my few share of overly charismatic people but I still couldn't help but roll my eyes when Ben once again was able to charm another person. He felt very mary sue and Jess felt like “im not like other girls” type of character which took me out of the story several times. If you end up picking this one up I'd recommend reading it on a cold gloomy/rainy day to really set the mood.

Spoiler of what happens in this book:
Turns out that Nick, Mimi, Sophie, Jaques (the husband), are a family (also add Nick and Mimi's other violent brother, who I can't for the life of me remember his name). But wait, there's more. This family is rich because of their supposed wine business left behind by Jaques first wife after she passed away. She is also the biological mother of Nick and the violent brother, making Sophie the step mother of those two. Ben actually finds out that this wine business is actually a front for this sex slave ring, where immigrant women are forced to dance and do sexual acts on gross rich men. Each wine represents a type of girl that a man wants to purchase, either for the evening or forever.Sophie is not actually a high born french woman but actually from Russia and was originally one of the women in this sex ring. Jaques took an interest in her and bought her out so she could become his wife. The concierge's daughter ended up being one of these girls and ended up getting pregnant, but dies while giving birth. Sophie really wanting children of her own ends up taking this baby and with the help of Jaques forges documents so 'legally' this child is theirs. Who is this child you may ask? Mimi. Ben charms his way to living in this apartment because Nick fell in love with him during this European trip and thought having him around would be like old times. Then he charms his way to becoming BFF's with Jaques, and even Sophie who loathed him ends up sleeping with him, multiple times. Mimi also ends up becoming enamored with him and believes he feels the same way about her. Basically, this is entire family, minus violent brother is in love with Ben. But Ben is only interested in finding out more about their dark secret to expose them and become the amazing journalist he thrives to be. Jaques finds out that Ben knows and is obviously pissed so he comes to his apartment and starts beating him up and I believe he stabs him as well. Mimi who sees this through her window decides to stop her dad because she loves Ben. When she arrives she ends up killing her own dad to save Ben. Sophie walks in on this and to protect her daughter ends up masking Jaques body and making her step sons believe it's actually Ben, so they bury him. Sophie puts Ben's body up in the attic where she tries to take care of him because he was in critical condition. Everyone eventually finds out about everything and Jess takes her brother to the hospital because somehow he was still alive even after all these months. She exposes this family but lets Sophie escape to a different country because she felt bad for her. Oh and the concierge you may ask? Violent brother pushed her down the stairs and she dies from the impact. Violent brother also commits suicide after the exposé. Things turn out fine for Jess and Ben. Mimi goes to a boarding school to escape this mess and Nick well truthfully I don't remember and it doesn't really matter. And that's all.

Loved how this novel begins but the protagonist is rather slow and annoying at times. I had a hard time reading this because of her and I wasn't really surprised at the end.