Julio CortazarHopscotch

It’s a pleasant enough read, especially the first part which takes place in Paris. This part of the book captures the aura of the city, the pretentiousness, love, loss, urban living, hedonism, youth. The story, however, starts to go downhill in the second part which is a rather confused effort by the author to finish a book that has been started - there is even a 10 page long scene about how the protagonist assembles furniture, which really makes me wonder what the point of it all is. I would highly suggest reading this book straight from chapter 1-56 and not bother with the rest of the “add-ons” because, we’ll, they do not add anything of substance and you do not miss out on the story. An ok book for a summer read but can get tedious after awhile, so 3 stars; did not rock my boat.