Product Description

Living in Paris with her partner, the workaholic Mr Frog, and their adorable toddler, Tadpole, Catherine decides to alleviate the boredom of her metro-boulot-dodo routine by starting a blog under the name of Petite Anglaise. As she lays herself bare about the confines of her stagnant relationship with Mr Frog, about Paris life and about the wonder and pain that comes with being a mother, she finds a new purpose to her day. As Petite Anglaise, Catherine regains her confidence and makes internet friends, including one charismatic and single Englishman who lives in Brittany, James. And after meeting James one evening in a bar, Catherine feels she has regained her ability to fall in love, too. Petite Anglaise weaves together many strands which have already struck a chord with the thousands of readers who love her blog: a “fish out of water” perspective of Paris life, the raw emotional drama of a whirlwind, adulterous romance and an honest appreciation of the hardships of single motherhood.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #88134 in Books
• Published on: 2009-02-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Financial Times
'Magnificent, a wonderful comedy . . . Sanderson has a novelist's gift for capturing eternal situations'

Express
'Written with breathtaking candour. A winner'

Independent
'Wry and often wise'

Customer Reviews

Reasonably well written but parts made my blood run cold
I picked up this book fully expecting to identify and like Catherine, being a 'Petite Anglaise' in France myself. After a few chapters I realised that the similarity ended there.

While I admit that it's quite well written (if a little stilted and pompous in parts), the book just fails to deliver on any sort of 'feelgood' factor that its pink cover might suggest. Catherine comes across as totally and utterly self-absorbed and lacking in any sort of humour or sense of irony. Frankly, it hardly seems surprising that she experiences a number of failed relationships.

The description of her reaction (read hissy fit) when her ex can't make it to pick up their daughter on a Friday night and she therefore has to forfeit her night out made my blood run cold. I have a child of roughly the same age and cannot for the life of me imagine such a reaction to 'being stuck in babysitting again'.

All in all I found the book utterly depressing.

Don't judge a book by its cover... really don't...
The major problem with this book is that it does not know what it wants to be. The cover screams fluffy, fun chick lit whereas the core of the novel centres on the painful collapse of a family unit and its consequences against the backdrop of the author's `career' as a blogger. Unfortunately this sum of parts does not gel very convincingly.
For a start, the author does not have the ability to fully express the depth of the conflicting emotions inside her as she makes a very difficult and painful (but not necessarily incorrect) decision, and this results in her coming across as rather self-absorbed. On top of this, she often feels the need to justify herself, especially with regard to her blog, how she uses it and her relationship with her readers. This leads to rather stilted `conversations' which smack more of set pieces designed for her to defend herself against any allegations or criticism concerning her blogging, her behaviour or both. Finally, it is difficult to create any bond with someone who, in a work of non fiction, constantly reminds the reader that their blog, which is also non fiction (supposedly), is not an accurate reflection of their life, and nor would they want it to be one. Given the obvious pride the author takes in toying with and manipulating her online readership, why should things be so different for the reader of the novel, as after all, this is basic blog-to-book fare.
The very light and throwaway subtitle `In Paris, in Love, in Trouble' sits so awkwardly with the content of the novel that it further alienates the reader, as it is difficult to believe that anyone with a modicum of sensitivity would allow this subheading to become the public and published epitaph to their relationship.

Very disappointing
I'm afraid I have to join the people who were disappointed with this book. For me, it illustrates the point that writing novels and blogging are totally different arts, and just because you write a successful blog does not mean you can write a decent novel. The narrator comes across as unbelievably self-absorbed and, as a mother of two, I just shudder to see the way the baby girl in the story is treated as a background prop in the mother's romantic and sexual adventures. The truth is that,if the author had not achieved a great deal of publicity over the dramatic events in her life/blog, this novel would probably not have been published but if it had, almost certainly would have gone unnoticed.