Elle is good at keeping secrets. She and her best friend have kept one for many years. One summer night, while her husband sits with family nearby, she and her friend consummate their life long love by having sex. Over the next few hours, Elle recalls events in her life over the years and the terrible secret she has kept. At first the narratives skipped time moving from era to era, much in the same way that random memories are remembered. This narrative builds the suspense over time and even when you learn about the secret, you remained hooked until the decision made at the end.

Child abuse is a serious, dangerous and very sad topic, which I am sure we are all aware of and understand the need to protect children. When real life abuse is identified, it is important for everyone aware to involve authorities and work to provide a safe environment for the abused child. And it is important for real abuses to be discussed and reported in the media so that all are aware of this terrible threat on humanity and those that pose this threat.


However, I found this fictional depiction of child abuse to be beyond disgusting! Highlighting the graphic details of abuse in this book felt sensationalized and trashy. I canâ??t imagine anyone putting pen to paper and actually writing this crap! Hate the idea that the author made money from writing this! I stopped reading it after about 3 chapters. A total waste of time!


Please note: I characterized this as difficult, dark and graphic. The app keeps saving my comments differently- inserting positive notations where I have found none.

“A magnificent page turner“ THE PAPER PALACE is not, although the author of THE PLOT wrote that blurb that appears on the cover of THE PAPER PALACE. Consider the source, I guess.

I admit, though, many others have also reviewed this book favorably. So you may choose to believe them and not me.

I found THE PAPER PALACE slow and drawn out. It is almost 400 pages of alternating parts of chapters examining, on the one hand, one day in which Elle has sex with her old friend Jonas and, on the other hand, the rest of her life. The book could have been and should have been half as long.

I understood that the parts about the rest of Elle’s life are to explain her history with Jonas and what led to this day when they have sex. Yet all those parts are not only about her history with Jonas. So why are they there? It felt like padding.

Besides, too many awful things happened in Elle’s life story when she and her sister should have spoken up to their parents to let them know what was going on. But, even as children, they dealt with too much alone. I found myself wanting to scream at them to say something. It was so much frustration.

We liked it, but how did it end?