When in Paris… by Beverley Kendall | Book Review

The book starts in French class when Olivia Montgomery locks eyes with Zachary Pearson her longtime high school crush.  Unbeknownst to Olivia, Zach also shares the same attraction but was giving her the cold/cool attitude because he couldn’t act on his feelings.  Apparently, Olivia’s mother had an affair with his uncle which resulted in divorce.  As a result, he was trying to deny his attraction to her and was pretty much indifferent.

Their friendship started when April, Olivia’s best friend invited her to have dinner with another friend Troy, Zach’s roommate.  April and Troy try to match them up together as it was pretty much obvious that they had something going on.  So starts the love/hate relationship between the two.  A field trip to Paris changes everything and they become intimate; with Olivia thinking that they are a couple and Zach thinking that it is only a friends-with-benefits thing.  Things blow up when they return to school when Olivia finds out that Zach is not serious with her coupled with the fact that Zach’s crazy ex Ashley, keeps on calling him.  They do not talk for a while until Ashley appears in Olivia’s dorm and collapses, resulting in a 911 call, which reveals all.   Zach still had been communicating with Ashley because she had suicidal tendencies and he could not, in his good conscience, not talk to her.  Olivia understands and Zach talks to Ashley’s parents and says that he does not want to be involved with her anymore.  The parents agree and said that they will get help for her.  Olivia and Zach go home together and officially start their new relationship.

When in Paris… is a new genre for me – YA/Chic-Lit type.  I am actually surprised that I liked it.  Olivia and Zach really had an explosive relationship with a lot of sexual tension.  Another thing that I liked about the book was the first-person telling of the story.  I especially like that Ms. Kendall wrote Zach’s POV and I loved getting a feel of his thoughts and feelings.  His POV is also realistically male.

Olivia and Zach are a perfect match, I thought.  I love how both of them don’t really know each other apart from what they assume what each other is until they got to know each other.  Their relationship progresses in a way that is slow but building up to love.  I have to admit, this sort of sounds like my love story (LOL).

One thing that I did not like about it is that the ebook had flourishes in between Olivia’s POV and Zach’s POV that it cut off a few words.  I hate it when this happens, although I know it is not Ms. Kendall’s fault.  This is a peeve of mine and I just have to say this.  Another thing that I thought could have been explored was Olivia finding out about her mom’s relationship with his uncle.  It was not actually mentioned in the book but was implied that Olivia is mad with her mother, with her father living in an apartment.  I thought that there should have been more emphasis on this because I think this should have been the major problem and not about Ashley.  Although Ashley had an integral role in their relationship, I thought it was not a really big enough impact overall.