Clémentine BeauvaisReseñas

"Well yeah, there you go: fourteen.

At that age, you're still under construction (pg 16)."

[SN: I won this ARC through a Goodreads giveaway. c:]

STORY:
In Paris with You by Clémentine Beauvais (320 pages), is a highly romantic tale (on the hopeless romantic scale of 1 to 5; 5 being the highest; it's a 4.5)! Sometimes, things have a strong chick-flick feeling, but a touch of realism is added at the end. I enjoy having a fun lighthearted story to read. However, it's a bit unusual to read because everything is in verse and the omnipresent narrator is confusing haha.

I totally get all the imaginary scenarios fourteen-year-old Tatiana dreams up about Eugene. You know, it's like when you go to a store or Starbucks, I guess, and you think hmm... wouldn't it be funny if I fell in love with the barista, and he remembers how I hate coffee but always order tea. Coincidentally he goes to your college and in his 4th year of engineering, he remembers you and asks you on a date, and it's not coffee he promises, amused. Eventually, you two marry with lots of money, no cheating, and 2.5 kids ...

Yes, Tatiana, I get you! That's the same longwinded junk I used to daydream about when I was younger too.

Heads up. There is a suicide, a minor reference to Down Syndrome that's in bad taste, and the male lead could possibly be insufferable to you. Moving forward!

OVERALL:
Is it perfect? No, but no story is.

Does it make sense why Tatiana's still hung up over Eugene? Not entirely.

Is Eugene the best male lead? Nah, he's mad-arrogant and pretentious (yes, they're slightly different: see here), and everything that goes wrong in this story is exactly because of him. He's very sex-obsessed. (In his mind), he calls Tatiana a slut for assuming she's sleeping with a man that she already denied being with. God's gift to women, everyone. Yeah, he apologizes, but he's pressedt about imaginary scenarios where she's with other men. I understand jealousy is a natural reaction (imperfect characters are certainly fine with me), but Eugene's a got a lot of gall. I think he was more eager to have sex with Tatiana than to truly get to know her again. He's more genuine when he was younger.

Still, I give this 5/5. I enjoyed every page of it and will definitely reread it over and over. Also, I like the cover. There are countless passages or quotes to love, and I highlighted my favorite ones. It's quirky and cute.

A fun read for any young or new adult.

Une jeune anglaise a l'idée de créer une agence pour organiser des mariages blancs entre Français et Anglais, afin que ces derniers obtiennent un passeport européen (brexit oblige) !
Du marivaudage à la sauce Clémentine Beauvais : c'est frais et drôle à la fois !

It’s that time of year again. Mireille Laplanche logs on to Facebook to find out the results of the annual Pig Pageant competition, awarded to the ugliest girls in the school (run by Malo, her childhood best friend turned nemesis). She can normally rely on getting first prize, but she’s surprised to see that, this year, she has ignominiously dropped to third place: a mere bronze! Who are these two girls who’ve beaten her? Mireille is fascinated. She sets out to meet her fellow Pigs, Astrid Blomvall (Year 11; gold) and Hakima Idriss (Year 8; silver), both of whom are distraught by the news and (in Mireille’s view) need to grow thicker skins. World-weary Mireille does her best to comfort them and, as she gets to know her new friends, she finds herself conceiving a plan. What if they could defang the Pig Pageant, and turn social media to their advantage instead? Funny, inspiring and heartfelt, this is a tale of the underdogs taking control of the narrative: a very modern story of determination, adventure, and sausages. Ladies and gentlemen, prepare yourself to meet your new heroines: the Piglettes...

For the full review, please see my blog:
https://theidlewoman.net/2021/04/24/piglettes-clementine-beauvais/

Please note that this review distinguishes between normative conservatives, right-wing conservatives, and Nazi-supporting misogynist muslim-hating right-wing French nationalists, because these groups of people aren't identical.

112/2020. This novel won the most prestigious YA prize in France. It's about three girls aged 16, 15, and 12, who are bullied at their school by, amongst other things, a three year long campaign of online misogynist hate directed by a self-identified and named classmate of one of them. The school, of course, does nothing and the local paper runs an article ignoring the victims and giving a positive spin to the misogynist hate campaign. So far so normative. The girls, who have been labelled "pigs", decide for various less than believable reasons (but whatevs this is supposed to be an escapist fantasy, amirite?!) to cycle across France and gatecrash an important garden party being held by the female President (I note France has never had a female head of state and the only woman Prime Minister lasted 11 months). This sets the reader up for a feel-good romp across France with three delightful teen-ish protagonists and the disabled older brother of the 12 year old. And, if you're a Nazi-supporting misogynist muslim-hating right-wing French nationalist then that's exactly what you'll get.

I was completely suckered in by the cynically witty female teen protagonist and faux good intentions in the first third, and it does make some points that even many right-wing conservatives would accept about, for example, how Good Immigrant golden-brown secular Muslims of the hyper-assimilated type who participate in French food culture by promoting, cooking, and selling pork sausages, and who fight loyally in the French military against the people of "Problemistan" [sic] are still unfairly rejected by ordinary white French citizens. But then it starts asking, um, awkward, um, questions about whether it was really wrong for French girls to fall in love with and support Nazis, and whether shaving their heads and saying uncomplimentary things to them wasn't excessive punishment, and it justifies this by pointing out that innocent girls were also targeted but doesn't point out that innocent girls were targeted because of French misogyny and the consequences of unhealthy competing nationalisms (although it is noted that the issues are "complicated" - not too "complicated" to bring up, obviously, but too "complicated" to discuss satisfactorily apparently).

Then the verbally bullying misogynist teenage boy attacks with a knife and tries "to gut" one of the "piglettes" (who're selling pork sausages made of pig guts). The "piglette" manages to avoid the stabbing attack and persuades the murderously violent misogynist, who had previously also attacked and disabled his victims' bicycles, to hand himself in to the police... but she then lies to the police by claiming the misogynist bullying and violence is all her fault and that she provoked him (so reducing the already small chance the perpetrator might get help and reform instead of remaining a violent misogynist into adulthood). Eep.

The plot goes on to fulfil several more layers of Shaenon Garrity's version of the Seven Ages of Man:
1. he's too young to know any better
2. boys will be boys lol
3. he likes beer
4. let's not spoil his promising future
5. she's just jealous of his success
6. it was so long ago
7. he's too old to know any better
(Addendum not by SG:
8. Speak no ill of the dead.
9. He lived during different times.)

The novel ends after the girls have confirmed their friendship, because nobody else will socialise with the "pigs", and raised some money for charities (military veterans, anti-bullying, and girls' sport - again nothing most conservatives would find controversial), with a fable about human nature and the futility of resistance. It's well-written, like the novel as a whole, and is set-up earlier in the story so it's difficult to summarise, but the gist is that society has always driven the animals it feeds on over cliffs and the only way for them to escape is to grow magical wings but, of course, that's impossible so society's fodder will go on dying... including those designated "pigs", our pork sausage selling "piglettes", because reclaiming a word such as "piglettes" doesn't change society so the hunted would be better off allying with and serving their masters than trying to run away and failing and dying (which is exemplified in the adult role models: Kader who is loyal to the French military, Mireille's mum who pops out babies for her men, Phillipe "Rotary Club" Dumont who is the best suburban father, the Pétainist elderly warden at the chateau, the various guardians of French food culture, even Astrid's supposedly "hippy" but actually conservative Catholic mum). Remember, the story says, that pigs can't fly.

So, if that's your sort of book then this is for you! Eep.

This was O.K. but it didn't really capture my imagination. Reading the online reviews, maybe I missed something by listening to it rather than reading it. The main characters meet up after being apart for ten years - will a connection happen this time around?

Translated by the author from its original french, Piglettes by Clementine Beauvais was a delight to read. Not wanting people to know how she really feels about being lauded as one of the three ugliest girls at school, Mireille embraces her status as a Piglette and uses her wit and humor to shield herself. When the three Piglettes get together they form a friendship and embark upon a coming of age journey that has the girls setting off on a bike trip to Paris, their plan is to gate crash a garden party with the French President and each girl has her own particular reason for wanting to be there.

I found Piglettes to be a light hearted, cheerful and funny story that actually covers some very serious issues about judging people by how they look on the surface and bullying. These girls, Mireille, Astrid and Hakima are quirky, interesting characters that are fun to cheer on.

The author’s unique style, tongue-in-cheek humor and strong feminist ideas form the backbone of this book. I did wonder if Mireille seemed a little too sophisticated to be a sixteen year old but her background could easily explain this so I just accepted it and went along for the ride. This is an adventurous story about blossoming friendship, hope and finding ones own inner power.

Mireille, Astrid, and Hakima are voted the three ugliest girls in their high school, and find common ground in a trip to Paris to crash the July 14th party given by the President. This is about beauty, resilience, social media, bullying, served with a lot of snark and garnished with sentiment.

This is a tough book to review. I thought the poetical format with interruptions from an unnamed narrator was interesting; I liked its inventiveness. I also liked the poetical nature of the novel. There were some lines that were gorgeous, and in the end, the language is what kept me reading. The problem is that, especially for a romance, I didn't like either main character. For example, when we first see Tatiana, she's faking a pregnancy so that she can have a seat on the metro. I almost didn't keep reading because that's appalling. How can a character recover from that? And Eugene? He's sexually obsessed, accuses Tatiana of having an affair with her thesis advisor, calls her a slut, and when she refuses to take his calls or answer his emails, he keeps insisting. He's totally unstable. So, in truth, I didn't care if these two ever got together and, in fact, thought it better that they did not. So, I can't call it a romance. I'm not sure what it is. I just wish the language of the novel wasn't wasted on two such undeserving characters.

Catastrophés par les conséquences du Brexit, les jumeaux londoniens Justine et Matt mettent en place un agence matrimoniale visant à organiser des mariages blancs entre Français et Britanniques. Si l’idée de départ de ce roman est bonne, le style ”franglais” enlevé et les personnages bien typés, on se lasse vite d’un humour (même British) répétitif, d’un intrigue qui s’emballe et perd de vue son sujet et d’une fin attendue. Quand pas assez ou trop de romance tue la romance.½

Gosh, I really expected to love this book. I kept hearing good things about it. It just left me so confused though. I can’t get past the fact that it was narrated like a play by some character that was never given a name. It didn’t seem to be anyone’s conscience because I think both of the main characters were connected to it. And sometimes it was hard to tell who “me” was in the story. When someone was talking and they said “me” was it the mystery narrator or one of the characters?

I found the writing style unique. It was basically written like a poem or prose. It was long and without punctuation. It was unique but not necessarily something I loved.

About the characters, Tatiana and Eugene met when she was 14 and he was 17. She fell in love with him and he broke her heart by declaring that they could never be together.
Of course that makes sense given their age difference but you can tell that it was more about him being jaded than his age. He thought he knew the way the world worked and that Tatiana was foolish for believing in love.

They meet again ten years later and they are given a second chance. And this time, Eugene pursues Tatiana. I definitely appreciated the karma there, that suddenly he couldn’t stop thinking about her.

That said, I always liked Tatiana more than Eugene. He’s not the most likable guy in the world.

I got to read an early e book edition from NetGalley. I would call this book unique but I wouldn’t say I understood it.

"Well yeah, there you go: fourteen.

At that age, you're still under construction (pg 16)."
[I won this ARC through a Goodreads giveaway.]

STORY:
In Paris with You by Clémentine Beauvais (320 pages), is a highly romantic tale (on the hopeless romantic scale of 1 to 5; 5 being the highest; it's a 4.5)! Sometimes, things have a strong chick-flick feeling, but a touch of realism is added at the end. I enjoy having a fun lighthearted story to read. However, it's a bit unusual to read because everything is in verse and the omnipresent narrator is confusing haha.

I totally get all the imaginary scenarios fourteen-year-old Tatiana dreams up about Eugene. You know, it's like when you go to a store or Starbucks, I guess, and you think hmm... wouldn't it be funny if I fell in love with the barista, and he remembers how I hate coffee but always order tea. Coincidentally he goes to your college and in his 4th year of engineering, he remembers you and asks you on a date, and it's not coffee he promises, amused. Eventually, you two marry with lots of money, no cheating, and 2.5 kids ...

Yes, Tatiana, I get you! That's the same long-winded junk I used to daydream about when I was younger too.

Heads up. There is a suicide, a minor reference to Down Syndrome that's in bad taste, and the male lead could possibly be insufferable to you. Moving forward!

OVERALL:
Is it perfect? No, but no story is.

Does it make sense why Tatiana's still hung up over Eugene? Not entirely.

Is Eugene the best male lead? Nah, he's mad-arrogant and pretentious (yes, they're slightly different), and everything that goes wrong in this story is exactly because of him. He's very sex-obsessed. (In his mind), he calls Tatiana a slut for assuming she's sleeping with a man that she already denied being with. God's gift to women, everyone. Yeah, he apologizes, but he's pressed about imaginary scenarios where she's with other men. I understand jealousy is a natural reaction (imperfect characters are certainly fine with me), but Eugene's a got a lot of gall. I think he was more eager to have sex with Tatiana than to truly get to know her again. He was more genuine when he was younger.

Still, I give this 5/5. I enjoyed every page of it and will definitely reread it over and over. Also, I like the cover. There are countless passages or quotes to love, and I highlighted my favorite ones. It's quirky and cute.

A fun read for any young or new adult.