I completely fell in love with Cristian Mihai’s beautiful way of writing. His main character, Chris Sommers, is an embodiment of realism. His persona was much attune to what some of us feel about ambition, love, and the realization of heartbreaking disappointment. I felt a connection to him in a much deeper level than I’ve ever known. Mihai’s writing style just reaches out to you, captures you – without letting go for a moment. It’s also very personal that you just can’t help but love the main protagonist. There were times where it pained me to stop reading because I wanted to note down my favorite quotes from the novel because it was just that amazingly brilliant.

From the very first chapter of the novel, we follow Chris Sommers on his adventure to Paris to find the girl he’s always been drawn to. Everyone loves an unrequited love story, right? When he arrives, he sees Amber, but everything is not as he expected them to be. He is then thrust into the Paris lifestyle where he finds himself and rediscovers events that changed his life, but also Amber’s.

The story itself is thought-provoking with beautiful and lyrical prose on almost every single page. It almost reminded me of F. Scott Fizgerald in that way where there is a story being written but underneath the surface is a message trying to be deciphered. I think it’s the reason why I fell in love with Jazz and am now a fan of his work.

Honestly, I would suggest this book to anyone who purely loves reading and is drawn to contemporary, indie novels. Cristian Mihai has a blog of his own on WordPress so….go forth and stalk him! Goodness. I really hope this doesn’t get me in trouble. If you, Cristian, ever come across this don’t think I’m so psycho. Kay?

Memorable Quotes:

We never perceive the passage of time in the same mechanical manner the ticking of a watch implies. For us time is subjective, a sinuous river, sometimes viscous, almost grinding to a halt as we zigzag our way among pedestrians wearing heavy jackets, and sometimes fast and turbulent, leading our lives with indescribable fury.

Artists never create art for what they might find. Some want to free themselves from nightmares, others want to inspire, or raise questions, or make people understand the world around them. Some want to entertain, others want to get rich, but it seems to me that no matter our reason for choosing to become artists, we all find more happiness in the stories or paintings or songs we create than we find in the real world.

We are all broken beyond repair and neither fame nor money can bring back what’s been taken from us. We all build these wonderful things, we all create art that inspires, that makes people cry or laugh, but, in the end, all we ever want is to be normal. We aspire for greatness because we know we’re never going to find the one person who loves us for who we are.

We are the prisoners of our own ideals. We have to follow a strict pattern, a set of rules and laws, and play the role society designed for us. We are taught that our choices don’t matter, that at best we are insignificant, and at worst we are invisible, shadowy figures wandering around a desolate landscape filled with rigid concrete boxes and bleak lights shivering in the night. I guess that what I’m really trying to say is that our freed is limited only by what we believe to be the perception others have about us.