First, a word on ratings and expectations. French Milk is by my quick count my third Lucy Knisley book (I read Relish way back in 2016 and An Age of License in 2018). So, when I decided to restart my Knisley experience I figured might as well go back to the beginning with her 2007 book French Milk thinking I knew what to expect having read books previously from the author about her mom, food, and travel and this book combines those in Paris. I didn’t really get what I was expecting, and that left me with a two-star read. Which is a bummer.
On reflection, what I ran into was a problem I feel like I should know better about by now, but alas no. Sometimes the beginning isn’t the place to go if you’ve accidentally started in the middle. Maybe it was reading about someone turning 22 when I’m preparing to turn 42 next week, maybe it was the fact that I have no real driving pull to visit Paris and only a rudimentary understanding of its geography, but either way I just kept waiting for there to be more to this book. It’s a travelogue that began as an illustrated diary, so it is expected to have an episodic nature in detailing the events and goings on, the sites seen and feelings had. But Knisley isn’t unpacking why some things spoke to her and others didn’t. Or really spend much time talking about the whys of any of it or reflecting on what the experience gave or didn’t. The final few pages begin to pick ever so slightly at this idea, but because its largely missing from the main part of the narrative I found myself fighting the urge to skim.
This won’t be my final foray into Knisley, but it is a lesson hopefully re-learned to just move forward in time, especially with memoir-like works.