In Paris. In Love. In Trouble.

Petite Anglaise by Catherine Sanderson
Petite Anglaise is the title of this book, the title of the blog, and the alter ego of author Catherine Sanderson. She's an Englishwoman whose living in Paris at the start of the book with baby, and boyfriend aka her daughter's father. Somewhat dissatisfied with her life she decides on a whim to start her own blog, which pretty much changes her life.

She finds herself having an affair with one of her blog's commenter's and changes her life to be with him. Also due to blog she winds up getting fired, originally how she got media attention on her book deal, but this adventure doesn't make it to the book. In a way it's a bit of a spoiler of the book, but since I had read the archives of the blog I knew what to expect, and I don't think that this information in anyway "ruins" book.

At first I was afraid that reading the book, would be like reading the blog. And there are times when she tells a story when I remember and know this isn't the first time I've read it. But since so much of the affair happened behind the scenes and was only alluded to there's a lot of information here's that new. And honestly after reading the book, it only makes me want to go back and reread the archives again.

One thing I really enjoyed about the book, and in a way more so the blog, are the details of being English but living a Parisian life. Even more interesting is her describing what's it's like raising a French child while you yourself are English. One of my favorite blog entries, that didn't make the book, was when her daughter at age 4 or 5 corrected her French. It wasn't anything major, just the gender of a noun, but it seems so weird to me that your child at such a young age could have a better grasp of grammar.

Something I identified with throughout was her experiences as a blogger. For instance feeling the need to do somethings in real life, simply for the idea that it would make a great entry. Or wondering at what point to draw the line one what to blog and even how it evolves. Petite has definitely changed in her stance her since initially she put so much of herself out there, but now she's no longer blogging. In a way it's a little disappointing because I loved reading her entries, but knowing that her blog really did turn her blog upside down I understand her decision.

Clearly I had a lot to say on the book but to finish up, I'm definitely glad that I finally picked this up, and can't understand why I hadn't before!

5/5
(Yes I did give this an official rating. I want to start syncing my reviews on the blog with my goodreads account and it makes it somewhat easier if there's an actual number. Just letting you guys know what's happening so you can expect to see more of these numbers in the future.)