Spoiler-Free Review

The Paris Apartment was a hit last year, and it’s easy to see why. I listened to the audiobook, and I really enjoyed it.

Click here for content warnings.

What’s The Paris Apartment about?

Jess arrives at her brother’s apartment in Paris where he’s supposed to be expecting her, but he’s not there. Now she must engage with the strange inhabitants of the building – and their secrets – if she’s going to find out what happened to him.

I enjoyed this way more than I expected I would.

This thriller stands out in a lot of ways. Rather than the dreamy, romantic Paris that writers often choose to portray, we get a seedy, grimy, somewhat scary Paris. Couple that with the claustrophobic apartment building and a host of strange (and unlikable) characters, and we get a recipe for intrigue.

Beyond setting, this is an interesting flip of the missing girl trope. Instead, it’s a man that’s missing – a man with charm, wit, and questionable morals. A man not remembered fondly by many.

While Jess, our main character, is busy trying to discover what happened to him, there’s this constant sense of unease thrumming through each of the chapters. This wrongness, this feeling that something else is happening here. While I didn’t put all the twists together in the exact right way, I definitely had all my guesses in the right ballpark – which is a good thing. The twists didn’t feel thrown in for shock value; they all made sense within the logic of the story.

We get the POVs for almost everyone in the apartment building, which created an interesting storytelling experience. At the end of almost every chapter from one of the building’s inhabitants, I remember thinking, “Wow, they’re kind of a weirdo.” But then something would happen or a truth would come out, and suddenly I’d understand them better, even when I still thought they were weirdos.

And the narrators were excellent. There was a different voice actor for each POV, and I thought each was a standout performance. They not only captured each character’s personality, but their accents as well.

Should you read The Paris Apartment?

I recommend this to fans of urban thrillers that take place in cities with criminal underbellies, follow rich people who do shady things, and have several big twists. There are many unlikable characters whose POVs we follow, so bear that in mind. Overall, if you’re looking for an interesting, twisty mystery, this one is a good candidate.