Book Review--The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery

I've really be wracking my brains to figure out how to adequately review this book, and I've been failing every time. I start a review and then realize that it comes up far short of this wonderful book...then I start over only to have the same problem again.

In short, I loved this book. It is up there as one of my favorites ever. I loved the characters, the writing, the structure of the novel, the setting (who wouldn't love Paris), the thought-provoking commentary over class systems, and the emotional connection I made with the characters.

Set in current dayParis, The Elegance of the Hedgehog follows the journals of two narrators. Renee, or Madame Michel, is a concierge at a ritzy apartment building. Paloma Josse, one of the residents, is a 12-year-old girl who has decided that life is futile and in order to avoid the miseries of being an adult will kill herself on her 13th birthday.

Both characters share that they are very intelligent and trying to hide that intelligence--for different reasons. But they connect through their subversion of class expectations and form a bond that is at once touching and illuminating. They are brought together by a new resident in the building, a Japanese man who sees through both of their attempts to "go underground."

I don't want to say more about the plot of the book, but I do want to point out that when I finished it I was crying my eyes out...something I very rarely do with a book.