genre: contemporary fiction
Paula's tried to launch from the nest. Whatever attempts she's made thus far have failed, so when she chooses to enroll at the famed Institut de Peinture in Brussels, her parent's aren't hopeful that this will stick either. And yet, in that high windowed room, where she learns how to paint so that her creation looks like reality, she is changed. The beauty of the earth is at her fingertips and despite the nomadic life that being a painter of this kind requires, she knows she has to try it.
This is a hard book for me to review, for some reason. It was slower going than I'd anticipated, as it's so short. It IS a coming of age book but during more of the new adult period. It is dense and there really isn't a plot, per say. It's not even completely chronological. Also, there really are no fully fleshed out characters at all beyond Paula, even the love interest and friend feel rather flat. But I also did want to keep reading, because interspersed with lots of vague interpersonal stuff I had a hard time caring about, the descriptions of the painting itself, of art and the power of it, that was beautiful. Most especially the last fourth of the book where her being essentially a "forger" comes full circle and connects Paula with all of humankind's desire to replicate and create representations of the world around us, THAT part I actually loved.
So, it really probably deserves 3.5 stars but I'm rounding up to 4 because of how much I enjoyed the last bit. The translation was well done.
Content: some language and sexual content
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