Melissa "Dog/Wolf Lover" Martin's Reading & Ramblings: One Paris Summer by Denise Grover Swank

Sunday, June 12, 2016

One Paris Summer by Denise Grover Swank

Most teens dream of visiting the City of Lights, but it feels more like a nightmare for Sophie Brooks. She and her brother are sent to Paris to spend the summer with their father, who left home a year ago without any explanation. As if his sudden abandonment weren't betrayal enough, he's about to remarry, and they’re expected to play nice with his soon-to-be wife and stepdaughter. The stepdaughter, Camille, agrees to show them around the city, but she makes it clear that she will do everything in her power to make Sophie miserable.

Sophie could deal with all the pain and humiliation if only she could practice piano. Her dream is to become a pianist, and she was supposed to spend the summer preparing for a scholarship competition. Even though her father moved to Paris to pursue his own dream, he clearly doesn't support hers. His promise to provide her with a piano goes unfulfilled.

Still, no one is immune to Paris’s charm. After a few encounters with a gorgeous French boy, Sophie finds herself warming to the city, particularly when she discovers that he can help her practice piano. There’s just one hitch—he’s a friend of Camille’s, and Camille hates Sophie. While the summer Sophie dreaded promises to become best summer of her life, one person could ruin it all. @goodreads

MY REVIEW:

4 STARS

When I first started reading this book, I wasn't sure I was going to be able to read it due to the horrible way Sophie was treated by her new stepsister. I wasn't sure I could sit through all of the bullying, but it all turned out okay.

Suddenly Sophie and her older brother Eric have to drop all of their plans for their summer in South Carolina and go to Paris. Their mother and father divorced almost a year ago and now their father wants them to come to Paris to be in his wedding. Since their father hasn't talked to them much in almost a year they are not happy about this one bit. They are hurt and feel betrayed by their father for up and leaving all of them. But, not everything is as it seems. Their mother and father have a back story they eventually explain to the kids.

Sophie's father marries a really sweet lady named Eva, but she has a wicked daughter. She is so very evil to Sophie and there is a lot of bullying at first from Camille and her friends.

Sophie and Eric are trying their best to get along with their father and the situation. There are so many things that go wrong that I wanted to smack a whole butt load of people. You will want to smack them too! But overall, I fell in love with so many of these characters. Once you find out the different situations then the others are not so bad either... well... almost. I loved Eva through the whole book, she was kind to the kids and tried to do her best for everyone.

At the wedding, Sophie finds something out about her father and she runs outside of the restaurant and this is where she meets her love interest in the book, Mathieu Rousseau.

EXCERPT

He slipped off his backpack, unzipped it, and started to dig around inside. "Are you lost?" he asked, looking into my eyes.
The kindness and worry in his voice caught me by surprise.
He handed me a tissue, and I reluctantly took it.
"It's clean," He said, and a smile spread across his face, lighting up his spectacular eyes.
I dabbed my face, realizing two things. One, this French guy was impossibly cute, and two, I as an ugly crier.

Mathieu and Sophie slowly start crushing on each other but there are some complications in the arrangement. I don't want to give out any spoilers, but lets just say there is more to the story.

Mathieu's mom is also a director at the Conservatoire de Seine and there are auditions coming up to get in by invitation only. Mathieu's mom had agreed to let Sophie come over and practice on their piano since her dad didn't live up to his bargain and get Sophie a piano. She needed to practice over the summer for a contest. Poor Eva got her a keyboard to try to make up for it, she was trying.

Anyway, when Mathieu's mom hears Sophie play one day she asks her if she wants to audition. Sophie is stunned as she has talked about this school with her mom before. She decides to audition and has to talk her parents into letting her. But she also has to decide if he is now doing it for herself or to stay close two Mathieu. Sophie grows a lot while in Paris and makes some good decisions for herself.

And there certainly is nothing wrong with a little romance as long as it's for all the right reasons. Plus, she has an older brother that has threatened bodily harm. :-)