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Hello Beautiful

Ann Napolitano

10.0 (1 Ratings) Rate It

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A rich, compassionate tale of four sisters and the love affair that fractures their family Best...

Family

ClareR (6054 KP) rated The Beasts of Paris in Books

Oct 1, 2024

The Beasts of Paris

Stef Penney | 2023 | Fiction & Poetry

10.0

(1 Ratings)

Book Rating

What I love most about historical fiction, is that I get to learn something new about the history of a place or a time I didn’t know about. I mean, I’d never heard of the Siege of Paris in 1870, and yet I now know a lot more about it through the characters in The Beasts of Paris.

There’s Victor, the assistant vet at the Menagerie; Anne has been an inmate at the women’s Salpetriere asylum for many years, provided entertainment for paying Parisians thanks to the immoral Dr. Jospin, and now comes to work as the Chief Vet’s maid at the Menagerie; Ellis is hiding his trauma from the American Civil War where he was a doctor, and is attempting to become a poet; and Lawrence is a Canadian Photographer.

We learn of the horrors of the siege and the further horrors of its aftermath. The descriptions of these events and how the Parisians both live through and cope with deprivation and fear, are emotional and engaging.

I was left wondering who exactly the Parisian beasts were; those inside or outside the menagerie?

Just an excellent story.