Very good quick read. What goes around comes around. ( )

(Only my thoughts on Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris, here. My thoughts on Mrs. Harris Goes to New York will be in a separate review.)

Oh my very goodness! Where has this extraordinary little 20th-century fairy tale been all my millennial life?

Ada Harris is a wonder in her spunk, determination, and imperfections. Imperfections indeed, as she's got a temper sometimes and may mouth off when vexed. She also has a thing for inventing falsehoods (even as she doesn't like to cross her self-prescribed line between "fibs" and "lies").

But, oh, what a journey this turns out to be, just by Mrs. Harris being herself. I was fairly entertained by this light, clever, and quirky read for a while—and then along through all of the little turns and twists, the downs that did some tugging on my heart and the ups that made my heart sparkle—goodness. I can pinpoint the exact moment when I realized I was falling in love with this story.

I won't mention which moment it was, out of respect for those of you who haven't read the book yet. But, oh! My very heart. At several points, I had to stop reading so that I could just sit there and smile and be in my warm and sparkly feelings.

The small miracles, when human understanding would spring up along the way, drew me in. And once I was up on my toes, the story kept me right up there to the very end, to the closing of Mrs. Harris's meaningful journey and what she takes away from it.

This fairy tale was more than a fairy tale for me. Reading it was an experience. One that spoke to me and has me using exclamation points and bold italics a bit more than I usually do in a book review.

I'm looking forward to reading about Mrs. Harris's adventure in New York. ( )

A charming short novel. Mrs Harris is a London char, a woman who takes care of people's houses and flats. She falls in love with the idea of having for herself a Christian Dior dress, and everything becomes about achieving that aim. She is a perfectly innocent person - uneducated and misinformed but with a good heart and generous portions of what we would now call Emotional Intelligence. In a very basic sense, this is a children's book written for adults - but that does not stop one's enjoyment, and when Mrs Harris triumphs, and when the secondary characters achieve their own happiness, you will feel as glad as I did. ( )

This was sweet and light for the most part, an enjoyable short book.
Mrs. Harris is a London cleaning lady who leads a fairly unexceptional life. Until one day, when she sees a Dior dress in a client's closet, and she is gobsmacked. She. Must. Have. A. Dior. Dress. Even if she never wears it, merely to possess such a piece of perfection will, she feels sure, enhance her life immeasurably.
When she finds out how much it will cost, she sets about scrimping, saving, and gambling a little, trying to gather the funds.
Her eventual trip to Paris, her acquaintance with the staff at the House of Dior, and the significant ways in which they all touch each others lives, make for an amusing and sweet novel. ( )

"Luck, she felt, was something tangible that floated around in the air and sometimes settled on people in large chunks. Luck was something that could be felt, grabbed at, bitten off; luck could be all around one at one moment and vanish in the next."

"Her jaw dropped, her chins folded into one another like the sections of a collapsible drinking cup."

While I haven't seen the film yet, I have seen the preview, and it seemed very different to the storyline in Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris [the book]. This short, but endearing story, told in (primarily) the third person, was a really enjoyable and uplifting read. I loved how Mrs. Harris yearned for something even though she new she would never use it and then made sure she got it. ( )