I liked the idea of this book, and the book itself was a lovely object but the contents disappointed me.
I enjoyed the descriptions of places, food, drink, buildings – inanimate objects – but found it difficult to remember the different characters – who was who and who paired with whom – and surely people should be easier to distinguish? I’m a reasonably intelligent reader and have had no trouble coping with considerably more than five characters in other books but it took me a good way into the story before I could remember which character went with which name.
The narrative style seemed inconsistent; sometimes the story was told from the narrator’s viewpoint – what J.J. could reasonably have observed or learned from conversation – and the next paragraph is written as if she is inside the head of another character and knows exactly what that character has thought and done.
This was an exciting and interesting time in history, and to spend a year in studying in Paris would have been a fabulous dream for me, but this book made it seem almost dull and unpleasant. ( )

This is the story of 5 young American women spending a year studying in Paris, in 1962. JJ, the narrator, is recounting their experiences 10 years later, in a talk to students at her fomer US college.

The appearance of the book was a bit contradictory, a thick trade paperback with an attractive cover but rather nasty thick, poorly cut paper inside. I liked the artwork which drew me to the book, but I was very put off by the blurbs on the back and inside covers, signed by writers or critics I’ve never heard of with references to Proust, Malraux, Colette, Camus, Sartre, de Beauvoir (no Zola, Mauriac, Sagan?) I really like some of those French literary greats but this seemed unlikely to be a new addition to the canon.

It turned out to be quite a good read – no literary masterpiece despite the references, and I don’t even remember there being much about the writers mentioned in the novel. This is a sort of coming of age story, with a bit of Parisian atmosphere, love affairs, future dreams and teenage angst. It’s quite long and some of the presentation doesn’t make sense – how would someone have time to tell the whole story in one talk. While reading, I cared what happened, although I’ll soon forget it.

With a better known publisher and a tough editor to rein in some self indulgence, I think Biggar could write intelligent commercial fiction. ( )

From the publisher's description...

"A group of young Americans, inspired by the revolutionary ideas of André Malraux, the sensuality of Colette, the existential angst of Albert Camus and Jean Paul Sartre, and the feminist theory of Simone de Beauvoir, arrive seeking adventure and fun. [...] As they move from the grueling demands of the Sorbonne by day to late nights of discovery in smoky cafes, they learn that seduction is intellectual as well as sexual."

Oh, my. Five young American women-- students abroad from an all-female college in California-- drunk on Colette, de Beauvoir, and the Existentialists. All during the watershed of 1962-63. Could it get much more fun? I couldn't wait to read this book.

Alas. The five classmates are jejune and silly things, not in that charming way youth can sometimes be, but in a vain, shallow way that does not bode well for later character development, real or literary. And they're nearly indistinguishable; I found myself reminded of the old Archie comic books, wherein Betty and Veronica are drawn identically except for hair color and outfit. The one exception is the poor, ethnic (Italian! gasp!) "ugly" classmate, of course the brainy one, who is continually tormented by her own lack of sex appeal.

The girls (and they are girls) seem to spend most of their time in Paris flirting with suitable or unsuitable men, savoring or worrying over petty social triumphs and slights, or losing their virginity in picturesque places. They seem to have nearly no intellectual curiosity, and when the occasional reference to Baudelaire or Colette or Pascal comes along, it's jarring in its incongruity. No scenes of scholarly discussion among them, no delirious private moments of literary discovery, no passion beyond painting themselves as sophisticates to be desired or admired.

Two more things that I just have to mention. One, and I think another reviewer has already mentioned this, is that the classmates are not merely apolitical, but anti-political. It's 1962-63, and their male friends (who I also had a hard time telling apart) are variously involved with the civil rights movement, the Left, etc. The girls are downright contemptuous of it all. This might be consistent with their silly selves, but this book is narrated by one of them ten years later, in 1972 or 1973. You'd hope that the political upheavals of the decade would have affected the narrator enough to remark at least once about their privileged ignorance back then, but nope. Two... is it really necessary to quote "yes I said yes I will Yes" not once, not twice, but four times (or is it five?) when assorted characters are about to have sex? None of them seem to have the wherewithal to have read Ulysses anyway, and the repetition is cloying.

The only bright spot is that Biggar can handle a sentence reasonably well. I rather liked her descriptions of Paris. ( )

That Paris Year by Joanna Biggar. Another coming of age novel. Another American in Europe novel. Another "novel" that has nothing to it that we have not come across in other and better books. Another novel that has been poorly written and badly edited. How does this stuff get published?

Joanna Biggar’s ‘That Paris Year’ tells the story of a year in the life of five young American girls in Paris, on an exchange to the Sorbonne in 1962-63. It proves a pleasant enough read, but I’m not sure I would have pursued the effort if it was not for the fact that I would be writing a review. The story is book-ended by the main narrator’s return to her alma mater ten years later to talk to the new generation of female students about the benefits of foreign travel. Her meandering introduction to the five central characters, their lives, motivations and complications feels like a diversion rather than an introduction. It is a reflection of the broader novel. Her heroines’ lives, woes and beaus seem hard to tell apart sometimes, even on longer acquaintance. It remains something of a disappointment that the promise of a year of intellectual voyage and discovery in the footprints of Malraux, Colette, Camus and Satre becomes more of a disquisition on the girls’ love lives and husband chasing. I wanted to be charmed by this independent publisher, especially with the effort put into heavier-weight paper and finish than you see in many a paperback nowadays. But finally, I felt 'That Paris Year' tried to hard with not a deep enough result. If you want truly evocative recollections of times past in Paris, read Proust. If you want a really sharp and sassy coming of age tale of an American ingénue in Paris, read Elaine Dundy’s ‘The Dud Avocado’.