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{{infoboxinfobox1
|title=Lessons In French
|author= Hilary Reyl
|publisher=Harper
|date=May 2013
|website=http://www.hilaryreyl.com/
|summary=Paris in 1989 is an interesting place for a young American graduate, but her boss is going to see to it that she has as little freetime for fun as possible.
|cover=0007446268
|aznuk=0007446268
|aznus=0007446268
}}
American graduate Kate leaves the States for a job in Paris, working for a [[The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger]] style boss, world famous photo-journalist Lydia Schell. She’s lived in France before, so she thinks she knows what she’s letting herself in for. She doesn’t. So while the title doesn’t doesn't refer to the language itself (she is beautifully fluent even before she arrives), there are many lessons for her to learn, from how to act as a go-between for Lydia and her husband Clarence (and his graduate students), to how to handle the handsome Olivier and the ''bon chic bon genre'' boys, to where to source the lavish ingredients her employer needs for dinner or how to make a proper timeline. The Berlin Wall is about to fall, the continent is buzzing, and Kate is a part of it, for better or worse.
I began reading this book while in Paris, and it was a lovely way to start as the descriptions were so vivid that I could live the city through the pages, and then step outside and live it again. Kate is an interesting heroine because she’s an Ivy League grad who speaks fluent French, thanks to her previous stint in the country, so this isn’t your typical tale of an American abroad. French phrases are scattered throughout the text. It’s not a language I excel at, but even when I didn’t know exactly how something would translate, I got the gist, and for me it was an important way to keep my mind focussed on Paris. Kate, however, didn’t quite seem excited enough about her new life in the city. She spends a lot of time analysing what other people are doing and saying, rather than doing and saying things herself, and it almost feels like she’s living other people’s lives rather than carving out one of her own. The job is demanding, and her memories of her family from years before are not always happy, but still, while her uni friends are probably doing boring entry level jobs back home, she’s living in Paris! She could be a bit happier about it.
