I was walking by the stacks in the library the other day, and Catherine Rider’s young adult novel, Kiss Me in Paris was on display. Naturally, I’m at least going to check out a book set in Paris. Yesterday, I reviewed Love Lettering, and picked it up because it was a love letter to New York City. This one really is about a whirlwind tour of Paris, so I was hooked. I wasn’t disappointed.

Serena Fuentes has twenty-four hours in Paris to photograph all the important sites her parents saw on their honeymoon twenty-five years ago. The college student lost her father two years earlier, and wants to present a scrapbook of memories to her mother for their New Year’s anniversary. But, Serena’s itinerary doesn’t go right from the very beginning, and Paris doesn’t even seem to want to cooperate. It’s gray and foggy when she lands, and exhausted after a red-eye flight, she makes her way to her sister’s. But, Lara has been ignoring Serena’s texts. She has plans to go to Madrid with her boyfriend, and says Serena can’t stay there. Instead, Lara’s boyfriend hooks her up with a friend, Jean-Luc, and says she can stay in an empty room in his dorm. Serena’s itinerary for the “Romance Tour” of Paris is already off track.

Jean-Luc isn’t happy that an American has been dumped on him. He has to finish his portfolio, a photography project about Paris. Now, he feels as if he has to show an American the highlights of Paris.

But, this American doesn’t want to see Jean-Luc’s highlights. She’s there to rush through an itinerary from “the best, most magical trip” her parents ever took. It will take most of Serena’s twenty-four hours for both of these young people to realize that sometimes great romantic memories are about the people more than the sites.

Kiss Me in Paris was deeper than I expected with the cover and title. Jean-Luc is the character who mentions “bereavement, stress, mistaken identity”. It’s about all of that, with an emphasis on grief. How do we face losing someone we love, and, losing memories of their time with us?

The book does cover some of the tourist highlights of Paris, the Louvre with its crowds all trying to see the same artworks, the Eiffel Tower, the boat rides on the Seine, the bookstalls along the river. But, it’s also a story about understanding yourself, and, at times, giving into serendipity instead of a rigid itinerary. There’s much more in Kiss Me in Paris than a reader would expect with a romance between two college students.

Kiss Me in Paris by Catherine Rider. KCP Loft (Kids Can Press), 2018. ISBN 9781771388672 (hardcover), 204p.

*****
FTC Full Disclosure – Library book