This is the story of three friends who meet at school in France. The story covers decades. It is a long book and it is slow paced so you need to be prepared to invest some time reading it. It is written well and touches on some sensitive topics

Another mesmerizing novel by this wonderful author.Three is haunting the characters drew me in kept me turning the pages .A book I could not put down.#netgalley #europabooks

This sweeping, nostalgia-soaked summer read is a coming-of-age epic which traces the connection between three ten-year-old friends Adrien, Etienne, and Nina. We first meet them in 1986 at primary school, where the chance bonds are forged which link them through thirty years of life: tackling childhood trauma, first loves, loss, work and relationship crises aplenty, before their carefully planned lives take truly unexpected turns. In 2017, a car is pulled from the lake near their childhood homes and a body is found inside – attracting the attention of local journalist Virginie, who knows the three friends and sets out to solve the mystery, reconnecting the lapsed links between the trio and proving that no matter how well you think you know someone, there are still hidden depths concealing secrets. Valerie Perrin has a real talent for capturing the complex nature of human relationships, somehow spinning domesticity into heart-stopping drama which renders the books unputdownable – making this longer novel an ideal accompaniment to a break in the sun.

I am emotionally drained. This book did things to me.

The most intriguing thing is how it’s done. The author never tells. She shows. She doesn’t suggest. She makes you feel. This is so raw. So human. So incredible.

I had high hopes for this plot-driven coming-of-age (all the way through to middle age) drama by French author Perrin, translated by Hildegard Serle.

It’s a chunky novel at over 500 pages and the experience of reading it really reminded me of The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller. Perrin employs a similar style - use of present tense throughout, abbreviated sentences, descriptive passages - and I think Perrin for me has the edge stylistically.

Alas, I didn’t love The Paper Palace, but in the case of Three I was glad I stuck with it. I was beginning to question if the commitment was worth it but at the 2/3rds mark, the book took off in an unexpected direction that I did not see coming (kudos to the author) and the pace picked up significantly, holding my interest until the conclusion which was ultimately satisfying.

Étienne, Adrien and Nina are childhood friends who form a tight-knit bond when they meet at school at the age of ten in 1986. Over their school years as they grow ever closer, they vow to escape their small town and move away to Paris together.

They are three very different personalities - Nina is beautiful and insecure and being raised by her protective grandfather after her mother walked out on her as a baby, Étienne is a fine young thing but all he longs for is validation and love from his father. Adrien is introverted and intelligent, the son of a single mother.

The entire book is written in the present tense (a pet peeve of mine - see my review of The Paper Palace - I think it makes a long book feel ever longer). We follow the lives of the “Three” over the years in the third person and through the eyes of first person narrator Virginie, a local journalist who knows the Three from childhood.

Did I love the book? No, but I did think it was cleverly crafted with lots of intricate detail. I was impressed by how Perrin stitched the story together, though I really felt it needed an injection of pace sooner. While I didn’t feel emotionally invested in the characters, I was invested in the plot and wanted to see it through to its conclusion.

The copy I read had a few typographical errors which were hopefully picked up before publication (Marie-Castille/Marie Celeste, Valentin/Valentine, among others).

If you enjoy a slow-burn drama with a mystery at its heart and are willing to immerse yourself in this story patiently, then it is one that will give you a return for your money. 3-3.5/5 ⭐️

Stunning. This is one of those novels where the characters stay with you long after you have turned the final page. I had never had the chance to read anything by Perrin before, but I can’t wait to look into their previous work now!

Thank you to NetGalley and Europa editions for the privilege.

REVIEW

THREE by Valérie Perrin
Translated from the French by Hildegarde Serle

eARC sent to me by @netgalley in exchange for an honest review
pub date: 5 May 2022

⚠️ CW/TW: death of parent and/or parental figure, toxic relationship, miscarriage, alcoholism, terminal illness, suicide

.

I had to sit down and write this review as soon as humanly possible otherwise it would probably take me two months to do it and I can't wait that long to rave about this book!

A story about a group of people spanning 30+ decades is very much outside my comfort zone, and it being a 512 pages long one really made me think about whether I should pick this one up or not but I did it anyway and it was without a doubt the right thing to do.

THREE is a story about friendship, about how our choices define us and the course our lives take. It's mostly sad, miserable and full of sorrow but with pocketfuls of joy and sunshine along the way, as well as determination and resilience. The writing was exquisite, not in terms of sophisticated vocabulary but in the way the author - and the translator as well - can write and enffuse so many emotions into their words. I love (most of) the characters in this book, how they are complex and intriguing and desperately wishing to atone for a multitude of things. Quite a lot of enumerations which in a different context would have bothered me for their repetitiveness but not here, they added something into the story and helped making it better. Also loved the cultural references that this book is filled with, mainly musical ones.

Took me a while to get through this book but every minute I spent immersed in it was worth it. Valérie Perrin is definitely an author whose work I'll want to read more of.

#Three #NetGalley

Valerie Perrin's 'Fresh Water for Flowers' is one of the most beautifully written stories I have ever read.

On that basis, I was always going to read this book, despite the high expectations. Happily, those expectations were not only met but exceeded. This is an exceptional piece of storytelling and the most outstanding book I have read so far this year.

Nina Beau, Etienne Beaulieu, and Adrien Bobin are 10 years old and the firmest of friends, inseparable and completely in tune with each other. Growing up together, they have what appears an unshakeable bond.

That is until tragedy strikes one of their young lives, causing them to separate. Nina ends up marrying an older man who is possessive and controlling. Adrien becomes a famous playwright and Etienne a police officer.

Years later, the mystery of an adolescent girl's disappearance resurfaces when a car is pulled out of a local lake. Virginie, a journalist with an intriguing past, follows and narrates as events unfold. How exactly she is linked to the three friends would be saying too much.

Valerie Perrin is extremely skilful at weaving her story with its engaging and charismatic cast of characters. I loved how the friends are depicted and the way their back story and present life gradually come together.

Nina is enigmatic and artistic, outward-looking and yet insecure. She was abandoned as a baby to be brought up by her grandfather and is shown to be shrewd, a quick judge of character, and yet vulnerable because of her past. She is capable of great happiness if only she can grasp it.

Etienne is self-absorbed and attractive, a magnet for adolescent girls. He cribs off his two brighter friends and bears grudges easily. He has a secret that he is keeping from his wife and is haunted by the disappearance of his former girlfriend, Clotilde Marais.

Adrien is the most shadowy of the three, with an inner personality he takes great pains to conceal. In love with Etienne's sister, Louise, he is picked on at school by a sadistic teacher and draws on his life experiences to write. He wants to change the person he is but wrestles with his courage.

It is rare to find writing this good. I was completely drawn in and invested in the friends and their individual and collective journeys. The prose is beautiful and evocative, drawing together its themes of love and loss, hope and grief into a compelling narrative.

I received an ARC of this book from Europa Editions, in return for an honest appraisal.

Three by Valerie Perrin was such a great book, that I found very hard to put down.

What I like about the authors writing style is her ability to delve deep into human emotions flaws and all. The bond the three main characters had together throughout their adolescence was special until it wasn't. Going back and forward between the past and the present, kept me interested and guessing what had happened to cause the falling outs between them.

The ending was deeply satisfying, it felt like all the loose ends are tied up nicely and everyone will be alright.

I had a good time with 'Three', an easy to read, plot-driven novel of three friends coming of age in central France in the 80s and 90s.

It is not great literature (albeit better than Joel Dicker), but there are lots of secrets that are slowly being revealed which kept me interested. It was a bit too long though.

3,5 rounded down, but I am sure lots of people will love this much more than I did and rate it higher. Thanks for the ARC to Europa Editions and Netgalley.

Great book, I loved this read.

Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publishers for letting me access an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest feedback.

Valerie Perrin has written another incredibly moving and powerful view of contemporary relationships and the joys and tragedies that prevail. Based around the friendship of three school friends and their development through adolescence into adulthood, this is a story that grabs you and enchants and captures your imagination as the the tales of the three lives progress. The stories of some of the key characters that are interwoven are equally moving Perrin is able to tap into all areas of the human psyche and the components that build up and destroy relationships. The stories of the three friends are beautifully told as the three of them grow as adults and then rebuild their friendship later in life. All three suffer and all three persevere through life’s challenges… no spoilers but there are some wonderful twists and surprises - adding to the emotional impact of this great novel. Highly recommended

I enjoyed her previous book and so was keen to read this one. A story which grew on me and then really started to affect me as I kept thinking of the friends and what happened to them.

it was heavily character based but that was the interesting thing - i really got invested and wanted to know what had happened and the paths the friends had gone on to get to the point in the present day. It's a slow burn of a novel but one that really looks into friendships and time and that you never really truly know anyone.

Three by Valerie Perrin is quite a saga. A very long book it follows the lives of 3 friends who first meet at school at the age of of 10 in 1986. The 3 ,Etienne,Adrien and Nina, soon become inseparable and stay that way through their school years. Intending to move from their town,La Comelle in Burgundy, and live in Paris together when they go on to further education a series of tragic events prevents that from happening and betrayal and bad choices sees their friendship wither and die.

In 2017 with the 3 friends now long estranged, a car is pulled up from the bottom of a lake with human bones on the rear seat .This has local reporter Virginie particularly interested as it's not only the car that has resurfaced but memories of the trio of former friends as their relationship disintegrated.

This is quite an amazing book as 3 rather quirky characters share an intense relationship during their formative years despite being very different people. The story goes back and forth between various timelines,often backtracking to the same events as seen through the eyes of more than one person,sometimes putting a massively different perspective on things and changing the reader's perception of the tale as a whole. There are many,many issues addressed, love,deception, adolescence, loss,toxic relationships, sexuality,loneliness and much more. It's beautifully written and a book to savour.
I did find some of the events near the end stretched credulity, quite why some of the characters bothered with another who was so deeply selfish and borderline narcissistic throughout baffled me but it's a key part of the story and things were tied up a bit too neatly for my liking,an odd thing to say after such a long book but the last few chapters felt rushed.
That aside it's an amazing read ..and quite a journey.

French writer Valerie Perrin follows her superb Fresh Water for Flowers with this exploration of lifelong friendships, beautifully translated by Hildegarde Serle. In the town of La Comelle in the heart of Burgundy in 1986, 10 year old schoolchildren, Nina Beau, Etienne Beaulieu and Adrien Bobin become inseparable, a friendship that will define their lives and their families, Etienne is to be found on the left, Nina in the middle, the link between the 2 boys, and Adrien on the right. In 2017, more than 3 decades later, the past comes to haunt the present as a car is pulled up from the bottom of a lake with a body inside, a story closely followed by local journalist, Virginie. She simultaneously reflects on the nature of the relationships between the trio who are now no longer in touch, absences shaped into separations that became a habit.

In a story that goes back and forth in time, Perrin illustrates her talent in creating nuanced, flawed and compulsive characters and in subtly depicting intricate and intimate human relationships in all their complexities as the trio face the joys and the strains of life's challenges through the decades. There is the vicious and sadistic teacher, Mr Py, who targets Adrien, the reading of stolen letters, the love of music that led to the composing and writing of lyrics for songs, Etienne's cheating at school and his relationship with Clothilde Marais, and the plan for leaving their small town provincial lives by moving to Paris together. However, the occurrence of a shocking tragedy results in the burial of Nina's life as a young girl, with the serious repercussionsthat are to test the trio. Nina now devotes her life to the animal shelter she runs, she has nothing in the way of a private life.

Perrin highlights how it might be possible to not really know someone, despite the fact that you have been as close as it might be possible to be through the decades. The pressures the trio face from others, the madness, jealousies, obsession, deception and machinations extract a heavy price as can be observed with Nina's marriage to the older, wealthy and handsome Emmanuel Dammamme. This is wonderful character driven storytelling to immerse yourself in, touching on the universal themes of what it is to be human, our connections and disconnections, identity, family, friendship, love, loss, grief, guilt, sexuality, judgements, bad decisions and betrayal. A stellar read that I highly recommend. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.

Valérie Perrin is always a delight. I was wondering if/how she could top Fresh Water for Flowers, and she didn't - she maintained the same amount of beauty and expectation. I'm not sure it can be topped.

In 1986, three 10 years olds, Adrien, Étienne and Nina met for the first time at school and become quickly inseparable.

31 years later, a car is pulled from a lake with a body inside. What has this to do with the 3 childhood friends?

Perrin takes us on a wild journey as we weave through 3 decades of the events in this trio's lives. This is a book that slowly gives us little jigsaw pieces of the puzzle that you can't wait to put together as the two timelines come closer to each other.

This is full and intrigue and unpredictable twists.

Valérie Perrin has an unerring gift for delving deep into life’s depths. Following the thread of a sequence of heart-wrenching, inescapable events over the span of three decades, she draws the reader into a compelling story of love and loss, hope and grief, and of the distance that comes with the passing of time. I still have goosebumps! Omg......... this book was amazing I flew threw the pages with Olympic speed!

A story of family and friendship, conjuring almost every emotion you can imagine - loyalty, betrayal, jealousy, obsession, guilt, for starters - but focusing on how even the closest relationships can conceal so much. I was fully engaged in the lives of Valerie Perrin’s characters, from their teens to their 40s, and invested in their futures. She has structured the book really well, keeping my interest throughout and not ending too neatly. Mysteries abound, but it is well into the second half (and after many, many pages) that solutions to those mysteries begin to emerge. Readers will have an inkling what one might be, but there are surprises too, including one I found a tad unlikely. If I have a criticism apart from the book’s sheer length it is that there are so many strands in play that it is difficult to focus on them all at once. Great characters, though, and a lovely French feeling to it all which always pleases me.

The lives of three friends, Étienne, Nina, Adrien, intertwined over decades. The friends inseparable, separated by life, by events, by secrets and petty squabbles and sulks, making up, drifting apart, rejoining.
At first, reminded me of a slightly saner version of Lize Spit’s “The Melting”. But then, just as I was getting slightly impatient, the story hit me. Hard.
Valérie Perrin has done it again!