Rating: 
Summary: A coming-of-age story told by a 13 year old boy.
Review: Rose Tremain in her novel, "The Way I found her" chooses as her protagonist a 13 year old boy named Louis. Louis is experiencing the development of adolesence as the novel opens and while trying to begin the understanding of himself and the world he begins to see the beauty of things, including the appearance of his mother, Alice. Alice is a translator of novels and it is she who takes Louis to Paris during summer holiday where she is to translate a novel by a woman author, Valentina Gavalorich, the writer of medieval romances. It is Valentina whom Louis experiences "true love" and the beginnings of adult-male passions. When Valentina disappears one day, it is Louis's quest to find her. Ms. Tremain weaves an interesing coming-of-age account with a suspensful drama of events. Not only does Louis begin to realize his own passions as a man-to-be, Ms. Tremain symbolically illustrates the passion in which Louis tries to solve the mysterious disappearance of Valentina. It is as if Louis begins to understand the passion not only as a feeling but as an act of human responsibility. Moreover, this novel explores the choices we make in our lives. Ms. Tremain illustrates a key element through a character who sees himself as an existentialist and this is key not only to Louis but to all of us. The choices Louis makes as well as the choices his mother makes are just that - choices which we need to be responsible and accountable for. Louis chooses his love for Valentina just as he chooses the act of finding her. Finally, the outcome of his passion for Valentina is his choice. As we enter into adulthood and all through adulthood we must try to accept our choices and take responsibility for them. In this, Ms. Tremain demonstrates her keen observations of life. And, although sections of this novel at the end seem long-winded, of one thing we can be sure - growing up has no easy answers or solutions. Ms. Tremain shows us in Louis that the choices we make is a learning process which can possibly never be understood but, which at the end, must be accepted.
Rating:
Summary: A coming-of-age story told by a 13 year old boy.
Review: Rose Tremain in her novel, "The Way I found her" chooses as her protagonist a 13 year old boy named Louis. Louis is experiencing the development of adolesence as the novel opens and while trying to begin the understanding of himself and the world he begins to see the beauty of things, including the appearance of his mother, Alice. Alice is a translator of novels and it is she who takes Louis to Paris during summer holiday where she is to translate a novel by a woman author, Valentina Gavalorich, the writer of medieval romances. It is Valentina whom Louis experiences "true love" and the beginnings of adult-male passions. When Valentina disappears one day, it is Louis's quest to find her. Ms. Tremain weaves an interesing coming-of-age account with a suspensful drama of events. Not only does Louis begin to realize his own passions as a man-to-be, Ms. Tremain symbolically illustrates the passion in which Louis tries to solve the mysterious disappearance of Valentina. It is as if Louis begins to understand the passion not only as a feeling but as an act of human responsibility. Moreover, this novel explores the choices we make in our lives. Ms. Tremain illustrates a key element through a character who sees himself as an existentialist and this is key not only to Louis but to all of us. The choices Louis makes as well as the choices his mother makes are just that - choices which we need to be responsible and accountable for. Louis chooses his love for Valentina just as he chooses the act of finding her. Finally, the outcome of his passion for Valentina is his choice. As we enter into adulthood and all through adulthood we must try to accept our choices and take responsibility for them. In this, Ms. Tremain demonstrates her keen observations of life. And, although sections of this novel at the end seem long-winded, of one thing we can be sure - growing up has no easy answers or solutions. Ms. Tremain shows us in Louis that the choices we make is a learning process which can possibly never be understood but, which at the end, must be accepted.
Rating: 
Summary: elegantly done
Review: this book is about adolescent boy is going to search a russian-originated french lady. very well done, and sentences are good, too. i recommend this to people who want feel of Paris' atomosphere. it's gonna be a little joy of mornig reading.
Rating: 
Summary: my introduction to Rose Tremain
Review: This is a delightful story of a 13 year old English boy, who travels to Paris with his mother who is to translate a book. Lewis Little is growing up, sometimes faltering between becoming a man and sliding back into childhood with its securities. The first part of the book details his attachment to the author of romance novels, with whom he and his mother are staying. Just when you think that the novel is about his love for an older woman, and an interesting coming of age story, suddenly the object of his affections disappears. He decides to take on the responsibility of finding and rescuing her. I found this book really interesting and was fascinated by the world through Lewis' eyes. He was funny, sweet, heroic, emotional, embarrassing...everything that we all experience during puberty. I have two more of Rose Tremain's books on my shelf and look forward to reading them.
Rating:
Summary: my introduction to Rose Tremain
Review: This is a delightful story of a 13 year old English boy, who travels to Paris with his mother who is to translate a book. Lewis Little is growing up, sometimes faltering between becoming a man and sliding back into childhood with its securities. The first part of the book details his attachment to the author of romance novels, with whom he and his mother are staying. Just when you think that the novel is about his love for an older woman, and an interesting coming of age story, suddenly the object of his affections disappears. He decides to take on the responsibility of finding and rescuing her. I found this book really interesting and was fascinated by the world through Lewis' eyes. He was funny, sweet, heroic, emotional, embarrassing...everything that we all experience during puberty. I have two more of Rose Tremain's books on my shelf and look forward to reading them.
Rating:
Summary: BEAUTIFULLY WRITTEN
Review: This is the first book I have read by Rose Tremain, but it won't be the last. She is a sensitive, talented writer. The coming-of-age story of Lewis Little is sometimes sad, sometimes funny, and the characters are unforgettable. I read it non-stop, and when I came to the end, I felt discombobulated to find myself back in the real world.
Rating:
Summary: Diverting but Disappointing
Review: This story holds your interest. It got me through a transatlantic flight, and that recommends it. It could have been such a great book though, that I was left feeling disappointed. The first two parts of the book present a thirteen-year old boy coming to terms with the fact that his beautiful mother not only has the morals of a cat but also is too stupid and self-absorbed ever to love him or his sweet, gentle father. This is a real crisis for an adolescent boy. I was really looking forward to the way Tremain would resolve the conflict. The mother and the boy are so vividly brought to life. He is a dear boy, sensitive, considerate and articulate. The reader feels confident that he will be able to make some kind of peace with his situation. Suddenly, this delicate story is tossed out and replaced with a silly fantasy involving mad Russian kidnappers, complete with "significant" chess matches and lover's communicating through a chink in the wall. Yawn. Too bad. Maybe Tremain was getting to close to some kind of personal truth and lost courage. Go for it again, Rose, you were almost there.
Rating:
Summary: Stunning
Review: What I thought was going to be a sweet, charming rumination on one 13 year old's most important summer, was instead a brilliant, insightful look at a young adult on the cusp on manhood. That Tremain accurately captures that evasive and often dizzying period of being a boy and a man at the same time is a testament to her incredible writing skills. This is a gripping and poignant book that will stay with you long after the last page.
Rating:
Summary: Tension through Character
Review: When Lewis Little travels to Paris for the summer, he enters into a childish fantasy and primitive love for a stylish, Russian author. Valentina does utterly consume him as he becomes more estranged from his mother, Valentina's translator. The inner world of this gifted and very hungry 13 year old boy is surprisingly not far from the meanderings of an adult. Only his simplistic, complete devotion to this plagairising goddess, who is far less a goddess than an aging overweight woman in the reader's mind, remains child-like. Some reviewers have noted the delayed plot while some have complained of the lack of a story line. I disagree. For it is through the characterizations of those who are attached to this elegant makeshift household, that true tension, verging on panic held me riveted to the book. There is the tangerine bewigged neighbor who could be either friend or foe in the ultimate deadly mystery that unfolds, an African housekeeper unfairly blamed for Valentina's accident who meddles with voodoo and speaks of revenge. There is the existentialist roofer, suspected but never confirmed as Lewis' mother's lover and there is a tender but poorly loved father, back in Devon, with quaint grandparents who is fond of teaching Lewis things that are depressed or otherwise unwanted knowledge.
All of these people fail to meet the immediate and ravenous hungers that drive Lewis, well past his age, into a tale of seduction, kidnapping and loneliness. The book wobbles into the rapids of modernity by the Seine, in the City of Love.
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