Where Would I Be Without You?, by Guillaume Musso
Publisher: Gallic Books
Reviews by Real Readers
http://meen-readingjournal.blogspot.com/2011/03/where-would-i-be-without-you.html ****
This is the story about Martin Beaumont, a young man from Paris, France who, while spending a summer in San Francisco, meets Gabrielle with whom he falls deeply and irrevocably in love. But once the summer is over he returns to France and it seems that their chance at love has been lost forever for reasons Martin doesn't know or understand.
Years later Martin is a successful but bitter detective in Paris on the hunt of notorious art thief, Archibald Maclean, a hunt that turns into an obsession.
But is Martin really chasing Maclean or is Maclean playing a game with Martin?
When Maclean travels to San Francisco preparing for his nex big theft, Martin follows him there. And in San Francisco Martin will face Maclean as well as a love he thought lost forever and big questions about life and death.
What to say about this book? It is completely unlike anything I've read before, and it wasn't at all what I expected from the blurb. I was expecting a thriller in which a cop follows a master criminal combined with a love story. And those aspects where certainly in the book. But it was much more than that and even the term magical realism doesn't seem adequate when I'm trying to classify this novel. The book was too philosphical to be simply filed under thriller and too dark to be qualified as a simple love story. The last quarter of the book plays out in an otherworldly realm which stretches the reader's ability to suspend disbelieve to its outer limits, and for some probably beyond those limits.
In some aspects this story was a bit too simple for me, all the links a bit too convenient and explanations to easily accepted by all involved. In other parts though, the story took me to completely unexpected places which, while fascinating, also seemed a bit too far-fetched.
Having said all that, the book captured me almost from the first page, and although I did find the ending a bit contrived and convenient, it did put a happy smile on my face. And that is the reason I rate this book 4, despite my reservations as far as some parts of the story are concerned.
1 star
"A young Frenchman has a life-changing love affair while in America. Some years later he has become a policeman in the Paris Art Squad and has a cat-and-mouse relationship with a serial art thief.
According to the cover, more than 1 million copies of this book have already been sold worldwide. That surprises me a great deal as, to my mind, there’s a lot wrong with it and several aspects of it feel forced and clunky.
The most obvious problem appears to be with the translation, which seems very literal (i.e. translating the strict meaning of the words rather than the general sense). As someone who has fluent French and has done her fair share of translation, I found the novel poorly translated, the language simplistic and frankly irritating. The poor translation effectively put up a barrier between myself and the story, meaning that I couldn’t get swept up in it. Some of the references to French culture should perhaps have also been removed and substituted for something more universal, as non-Gallic readers will largely not get the benefit of them.
The book doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be or even what form it wants to take. It’s a strange mix of chick-lit, thriller and at least one other genre (trying to avoid spoilers here!). The text sometimes appears in the usual way for a novel and at other times the reader is faced with essentially a film script, with the names of the characters followed by their dialogue.
Musso also repeatedly uses some tricks in his writing in order to give a sense of the various times in which the action takes place. His favourite, which he uses over and over again, is to have popular songs playing or other cultural phenomena discussed so that his narrator can comment on how successful a particular band were in a certain year for example. This trick is used over and over again, so becomes quite grating and intrusive – it gets particularly bad in a passage where the book’s protagonist goes to the supermarket to buy some essentials and tells us that in his basket he has food, the latest novel by a world-famous thriller writer and a DVD box set of a cult TV series. He also demonstrates an obsession with a particular fizzy drink to the extent that the reader suspects product placement, and has pretty much every character at some stage wear a leather jacket.
The novel’s characters aren’t any more original and are clichéd in the extreme. One in particular is described as looking like a certain Hollywood actor and Musso then uses that actor’s biographical details for his character. There are other “borrowings” (or perhaps homages) to classic detective fiction in the naming of one of the minor characters.
But, having said all that, it’s a quick read and something keeps you pressing on right to the (not-wholly-successful) end. Indeed, near the end I even found a couple of passages quite moving.
All in all, very French, very clichéd, but very undemanding, so will be the perfect holiday read for many. Readers looking for something more realistic or demanding would do well to steer clear."
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/144954294
3 stars
"This is a novel that wants to grow up to be a film. It seems to have been written with the possibility of a screen adaptation constantly at the forefront of the author's mind. At one point, he even splits the page into two columns, attempting to describe two scenes simultaneously, in the literary equivalent of a split screen technique. This is not necessarily a bad thing.
'Where Would I Be Without You' is a light, easy read requiring some suspension of disbelief if the reader is to gain maximum enjoyment. It begins as a tale of thwarted young love, suggests briefly that it is about to become a detective story, then veers off in another direction entirely, culminating in a short excursion into the realms of the paranormal.
What kept me turning the pages was a fascination with the two central male characters, Martin and Archibald. Both complex and mysterious, they are motivated by their love for the same woman. Neither is exclusively hero or villain.
I found the ending, however contrived, strangely satisfying, but it would be unfair to potential readers to say more. Not great literature, but an unusual and enjoyable read."
3 stars
"Guillaume Musso is a young French author who is very successful in his home land. He has sold over 8 million books and Where Would I Be Without You? has already sold over a million in France. The version published in the UK is translated by Anna Brown and Anna Aitken and will be released on 4 April 2011.
This is a really 'different' read, with no clear genre category to put it into. It's a love story, a police thriller and then turns towards the paranormal towards the end, so a bit of everything really. This works well if like me, you have a fairly eclectic reading taste, however die-hard crime fans may not enjoy the different directions that the story takes.
Set in Paris and San Franscisco in the mid 90s, the story centres around Gabrielle and Martin - a young couple who meet and fall in love. The story leaps forward to find Martin working as a 'flic' - a French policeman with a special interest in art crime. Martin and Gabrielle have not met since that summer twelve years before and it is clear that Martin's life is pretty empty and lonely.
Martin is determined to capture the famous art thief Archibald Maclean who has outsmarted him for many years and goes back to America to chase him.
Gabrielle, Archibald and Martin are linked together in ways that only Archibald knows, he has been instrumental in their lives for a long time and from a distance.
I don't want to give away any spoilers in this review so won't go into the storyline any further. It's an interesting read, a unique plot line and although I had guessed a couple of the twists, it's an entertaining read.
The style of writing changes throughout the book, with parts reading like a screenplay and others like a diary - sometimes the language can be too simple and a little stilted, this may be due to the translation rather than the author's intention.
The story enters into the paranormal at the close, which was a neat way of explaining some things and tied the story up quite well, but on a personal level didn't really work for me.
On the whole an easy, entertaining read."
http://www.shelfari.com/books/18063612/Where-Would-I-be-without-You-/readers-reviews
"I'm in two minds about this book. On the one hand, I kept wanting to read it, and looked forward to carrying on the story. On the other hand, I found it very predictable and written in a quite a simplistic manner. I couldn't decide if the style of writing was an accurate translation from the French original or whether it was from the translator. Either way, it didn't read well for me and that was my biggest stumbling block.
If you like romantic stories and novels, then this book is definitely for you. I'm not a massively romantic person and so I did struggle with the aspects of the story which other people may well enjoy more. What I did like was a certain symmetry within the story telling. And the ending was a little more unusual than I had been expecting.
Overall it is an enjoyable light read and probably would sit well for a good beach read. I would definitely read other books by this author."
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/141687261
2 stars
"** spoiler alert ** It starts with Martin and Gabrielle, two young adults who fall in love and have a passionate, if brief, affair in San Francisco. Martin has to go home to France and like most long-distance relationships, it doesn’t work out (by page two, we ominously hear that it is his ‘last serious love affair’). Cut to 13 years later and Martin is now a police captain, working on cultural crime. He’s been tracking an ingenious art thief, Archibald McLean, who’s managed to elude capture for 25 years. He believes he knows where McLean will strike next, and what he decides to do with that information sends him on a crazy journey through Paris and back to San Francisco (what a coincidence).
Let’s start with the good things. This is definitely a read to be indulged by the pool / beach / holiday chalet patio; it’s light (I finished it in under four hours), but not so light you feel your brain shutting down in boredom. There’s just enough intrigue to keep you going.
Where I had the biggest issue with the novel is the chapters set in some sort of surreal post-consciousness that gave everyone a happy (of sorts) ending.
+3 *s for a reasonably interesting story and pace, -1 * for all-too-convenient paranormal bit that explains everything."
http://www.librarything.com/work/10876199/reviews
4 stars
"This is the story of French policeman, Martin Beaumont. Years ago he had visited San Francisco and fallen deeply in love with Gabrielle. However, their love hadn’t managed to overcome the distance between them when Martin returned to France.
Years later, Martin is chasing legendary thief, Archibald McLean and this chase leads him back to San Francisco.
I was a little wary of this book because, as a rule, I don’t like translations. I often find them clunky, but this one was well done and I very much enjoyed the read. I liked the character of Martin, who seemed to be a bit of a rogue cop, going his own sweet way. Towards the end, the story got a bit strange, but it was still believable in its own way, and didn’t change my feelings towards how much I liked the book. I’d say it’s predominantly a love story, and not a crime novel, despite the main character being in the police force, and the pursuit of a criminal. This is very much the story of Martin and Gabrielle, and their enduring love for each other.
It’s a very easy read, and I’d recommend it if you enjoy a good love story."