The Reading Ace 🖤🤍💜

This is technically a re-read/viewing for me, but every now and then I have to give in to the urge to flip back through this book and look at the beautifully haunting sculptures.

And I mean, the introduction's by Philip Pullman AND Jack Zipes worked on the translation. It doesn't get more legit than that!

It's actually kind of funny - I try to have 3 books or so going at any given time: one physical book, one e-book, and one audiobook. I tend to listen to a lot of true crime audiobooks, because those are my cat's favorite (long story) and for some reason, all of the audiobooks I was finding through Libby that day were WWII/Holocaust-related.

I wasn't really in the mood for something that dark, so I picked up this book.

Which was great! It's got a touch of magical realism, decadent descriptions of pastries, lots of interesting characters, and a good moral at its heart.

And it also heavily revolves around the Nazi occupation of Compiègne.

I'm low-key in love with the way Lafebre draws characters. I had to stop reading several times to just admire facial expressions, or their eyes, or their posture...like, this thing is SO pretty!

The story is also funny - well okay, not funny funny, it's a murder mystery built around a bipolar psychologist who is guided by the ghosts of the women in her family, but the entire thing is very tongue-in-cheek and the events keep escalating until the absolute end of the story.