Skylark by Paula McLain is a story of Paris and the secrets it holds above and below its streets. In 1664, Alouette Voland is the daughter of a master dyer at the famed Gobelin Tapestry Works. She dreams of creating her own masterpiece and escaping her circumstances. When her father is imprisoned, her efforts to save him leads to her own confinement in the Salpêtrière asylum, notorious for its cruel treatment of the women. Despite the grimness, Alouette finds a group of allies and a possibility of a life she only dreamed about. In 1939, Kristof Larson is a medical student at the beginning of his psychiatric residency in Paris. He befriends his Jewish neighbors who fled Poland. When Nazi forces take over the city, Kristof realizes he is the only hope for the family’s survival with his work as a doctor being put at risk.
Paula McLain is a new author to me. I enjoy dual timeline stories and Skylark is descriptive as a “mesmerizing tale” where “a woman’s quest for autistic freedom intertwines with a doctor’s dangerous mission” and reveals “a story of courage and resistance that transcends time.” Sounds great, right? The story is beautifully descriptively written; however the story is slow going. As I read, the individual timelines were great as Alouette and Kristof stood in defiance to the power of the day but the connection between the two was very vague and almost non-existent. Overall, the stories were interesting and they could have been their own books and I would have loved them. Skylark wasn’t the dual timeline story that I expected. I enjoyed Alouette and Kristoff’s stories; however, I do not think a dual timeline story was needed to tell their journeys. If you are a fan of Ms. McLain, you may enjoy Skylark.
Skylark is available in hardcover, eBook and audiobook
No comments:
Post a Comment