Frank H. (perryfran) reviewed on 5/13/2009 + 1182 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 3

Finished reading this one this morning on the Metro rail on way to work. Well, I didn't hate it but I did find it to be somewhat meandering and confusing. The story seemed to randomly jump from first person to third person narrations and from one point in the narrator's life to another in both time and location. I guess you could consider this to be an artistic style but it didn't work real well for me. The story itself was very simple about a young French girl's affair with an older Asian man in pre-war IndoChina and the taboos against such a relationship at the time and the tragedy of lost love. I did see the movie version of this a few years ago and I thought that the movie seemed to flow a lot better than the novel.

Back to all reviews by this member
Back to all reviews of this book
Back to Book Reviews
Back to Book Details