Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This Book is a memoir, not a lifestyle book. She focuses on her mentor and how her in-laws arrange their oh-so-French homes and what makes them that way. The author and her French husband have lived in a NYC apartment, but never offered any tips on how to translate the “every room has its purpose and should be used solely for that purpose.” I had some curiosity about the alleged “French lifestyle” as interpreted through the experience of an American woman, but parts of this book were downright offensive. At one point, M. Postel-Vijay got quite petulant that his lady friend wanted a snack and would therefore ruin the experience of their shared lunch. (Dude. Share the snack.) He also had a hissy fit that non-French cast and crew on a movie set were not being appreciatively French of the food and so disrespecting him. There is very very little here you can use if you don’t own a residence you can do work on and one large enough to “give each room its purpose” and have a fireplace, I enjoyed the sections about the home library, the home office, and the entryway—but it was nothing new and certainly not worth the money I paid. Get this from the library. Don’t even check it out, take a few notes there, and you’ll have gotten all the value a modern urban dweller can get out of this, unless expat memoirs enthrall you.