This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
Reviewed by Jennifer Joyce
Twenty-year-old mechanic Arthur Dreyfuss is shocked when he opens his front door to discover Hollywood actress Scarlet Johansson standing on his doorstep. But the woman isn’t what she seems. Although she looks like the actress, the woman Arthur meets is really a French woman named Jeanine Foucamprez, a young woman with a heartbreaking past.
Over the next few days, Arthur and Jeanine get to know each other, discovering the secrets they hold and falling in love. But their love can’t last and soon their time together will be nothing but precious memories.
When I first started to read The First Thing You See, I thought I was in for a treat. It seemed like a fun, quirky read and I was looking forward to finding out who Jeanine was and why she’d turned up on Arthur’s doorstep but I couldn’t help feeling disappointed as the story moved along. Yes, it is quirky and some people may love it but I’m afraid it wasn’t a book I enjoyed. Some of the quirks started to get a bit annoying (Arthur’s habit of throwing in film facts, for example. To begin with I found them quite fun and amusing but as the story progressed, I found myself skimming over them, especially some of the more long-winded ones) and the book seemed filled with irrelevant details and detours.
I wanted to feel for Jeanine and Arthur when I learned what had happened in both their pasts but as the book is told in quite a detached way, I didn’t feel as connected to the pair as I would have liked and by the end I was just happy that the book was over. The actual writing was fine and could be amusing but I found it too meandering and long-winded and focused far too much on Arthur’s obsession with breasts.
6/10
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