Lotus Lowenstein's My-Life-Is-Merde-but-Have a Bonnes-Fêtes-Anyway Blog Tourapalooza!

Welcome to Lotus Lowenstein's My-Life-Is-Merde-but-Have a Bonnes-Fêtes-Anyway Blog Tourapalooza!

Let's start things off with my review!

Amazon.com:

An adorable, completely original YA voice.

Lotus Lowenstein's life is merde. She dreams of moving to Paris and becoming an existentialist. Yet here she is trapped in Park Slope, Brooklyn, with a New-Agey mom, an out-of-work dad, and a chess champion brother who dreams of being a rock star. Merci à Dieu for Lotus’s best friend, Joni, who loves French culture enough to cofound their high school’s first French Club with Lotus. At the first meeting, the cutest boy in the world walks in. His name is Sean, and he too loves French culture and worships Jean-Paul Sartre.

At first, Lotus thinks Sean is the best thing to happen to her in years. He’s smart, cultured, and adorable. Unfortunately, though, Joni feels the same way. And having an existentialist view of love, Sean sees nothing wrong with enjoying both girls’ affections. Things come to a head when all three depart for Montreal with their teacher, Ms. G, on the French Club’s first official field trip. Will Sean choose Joni over Lotus? And will Lotus and Joni’s friendship ever recover?

The Pillow Book of Lotus Lowenstein was a fabulous, delicious and hilarious book! It's really hard to pick a favorite part of it. The entire book is written as Lotus's diary and her observations about her friends and family. Lotus lives in Brooklyn, is obsessed with all things French, and has a fantastic sense of humor. She's someone I would want to hang out with.

I love how she wanted to immerse herself in French culture and existentialism. She's really into fashion and just getting out there and trying to have a good life and include others in it. And as I've said before she's just funny, her observations about everything reminded me a bit of Georgia Nicolson, as others have mentioned. She's hard to describe because she's so absolutely layered which I loved!

I loved being reminded about why I took French in high school and how much I just love French culture just like Lotus! It was nice being back in that place. I also was excited to see how the love triangle between Lotus, her best friend Joni, and other French Club member Sean played out.

Overall this was a hilarious and heartfelt book and I can't wait to check out some of the author's other adult books. I hope she also continues down this track with another book in this same spirit for the young adult audience!

The Pillow Book of Lotus Lowenstein will be released on December 8th!
Genre: Young Adult
4.5/5 Stars
ARC provided by Publicity/Marketing Firm

About the Author:

Libby Schmais is the author of the adult novels The Perfect Elizabeth and The Essential Charlotte. The Pillow Book of Lotus Lowenstein is her first novel for young readers. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Today’s French Word du Jour is Bête (which means "stupid").

If you collect all the French words du jour on the Blog Tourapalooza, you can enter a contest to win fabulous prizes (a $25 Sephora gift card and a personally autographed Pillow Book!). Once you’ve visited all the blog tour stops and collected all the words, email the complete list of words to lotuslowenstein@gmail.com with the subject line “French Word du Jour Contest.” All e-mail entries must be received by midnight (EST) on December 21, 2009. The winner will be selected at random on December 22, 2009. Be sure to include your name, e-mail address, and daytime phone number with your entry (If you're under age 13, give your parent's contact info). The complete My-Life-Is-Merde-but-Have-a-Bonnes-Fêtes-Anyway Blog Tourapalooza schedule can be found at lotuslowenstein.com. Our next tour stop is Steph Su Reads on December 8. See you on the road, mes amis!