Ensemble c'est tout (Litterature Generale)

I must say that Anna Gavalda is a good French writer, I have not liked all her book but this one is very special. It brings 4 characters with whom you get attached during the book. Their lives evolved in a very unusual way, showing their closeness evolving, a mixture of very different background for each character, saving each other in many different ways. Amusing at times, sad during other times. You get in the book as an observer, you almost want to be part of 'The family'. All along the book you also evolve with the characters, liking, disliking some of them, wanting to talk to them.I cannot say much more as otherwise it would not bring your appetite to read this book, this is a discovery of love, sadness, anger between 4 people, making little by little their own family.When you finish the book you do not want to end reading it, you want to go with the characters for more and more.PLEASE NOT THAT IF YOU DO SPEAK FREMCH DO READ IT IN FRENCH, I have not read the English version which I am sure will give enough pleasure and sadness in reading it, but as we all know if one can it is always more satisfactory to read a book in its original language.Have a good read!

The novel is as new and the French is quite easy to read especially as I bought the novel in English and read a few chapters of it first!Because I use addresspal to have items sent to Ireland I had to pay another 4 Euro but it's worth it. However my order is coming is 5 different lots so that's 20 more Euro!

This was the second French novel I read from cover to cover after I was recommended it by a friend. It's interesting with well developed characters if not a bit too gushy for my taste. Way better than the Claude berri film so read this (or a translated copy) before watching!

Super story.

Great book, great service!

I love this book... It is so engaging in its simplicity and warmth. Good delivery too.

Life does bring you something good too. Worth reading it!

A best seller in France and adapted as a film starring the gamine Audrey Tautou and titled in English "Hunting and Gathering", this is the tale of three very talented young people who, having been damaged by their dysfunctional, neglectful or thoughtlessly cruel parents, form an unlikely friendship through which they help each other to achieve fulfilment and happiness.Camille is a gifted artist, reduced to anoxeria and working as an office cleaner at night. Franck is a boorish and promiscuous chef, whose loud mouth conceals a soft heart and a sense of guilt over abandoning his beloved grandmother Paulette to a soulless old people's home. The aristocratic, for me stereotyped, Philibert, is a walking history book, a stammering figure of fun with obsessive compulsive disorder, who wastes his skills selling postcards.My judgement may have been jaded by the effort required to read this in the original French. It is certainly a good source of modern slang, colloquial speech, idioms and cultural references, although deciphering some of these was a hard and often fruitless labour. I needed a French speaker on hand to ease the path more than for any other French novel I have ever read.However, I feel confident in saying that this potentially interesting plot was ruined for me by self-indulgently excessive length and lack of editing of too many banal conversations and incidents, by a mawkish tone and a very loose, clunky structure. Minor scenes are presented in great deal, major incidents glossed over or implied.The narrative veers between passages of dense prose, such as Part 3 (rationale for these parts eluded me) Chapter 17 in which Camille explains the trauma of her childhood in a lengthy passage of "telling" rather than "showing" and some other chapters which are just a page long - a few slangy phrases in a sea of white space.The tone is mostly mildly crude or schmaltzy with the occasional flight into pretentiousness. The characters often seem underdeveloped to me. There was missed scope for drama in, for instance, the behaviour of Camille's mother, Philibert's finding of a girlfriend or the role of the drug addict Vincent.There are a few moving passages, such as Pauline's experience of ageing. Also, some moments of humour, as when Camille makes a coat for the concierge's dog out of Franck's shrunken designer jumper. But a good deal of tedium has to be navigated to dredge up these pearls.

L’histoire est simple mais rempli d humour et d’amour. A lire absolument pour prendre une bouffée d’air frais

J'écris rarement de commentaires. Je finis rarement de livres. (Manque de motivation, temps, etc...) J'ai lu ce livre de 574 pages en 5 jours. Des nuits entières, je ne pouvais plus m'arrêter, j'étais méconnaissable. Le bonheur de suivre l'histoire des protagonistes, je ne veux pas en dire trop. Lisez-le, vous ne le regretterez pas. Et vous en oublierez votre quotidien, quel bonheur ! J'ai ri aux éclats, très bruyamment. J'ai pleuré, très bruyamment. J'ai relu des passages, n'y croyant pas mes yeux. Le choc, la surprise, les larmes, toutes les émotions y passent. Lisez-le, Anna Gavalda est une Reine.

J'ai adoré ce roman. Depuis le début jusqu'à la fin. Je l'ai même dévoré! Et j'étais toute triste de le finir. En fait, je le relis, juste pour le savourer. On s'attache tant aux personnages. Oui, le livre est très «français de France» mais cet aspect est très intéressant par sa langue populaire, mais ausii parce qu'il nous plonge dans la vie dure des milieux populaires. Le tout non sans humour. Le titre le dit ien: Ensemble c'est tout : l'amour transforme la vie.

Tutto perfetto.

El libro llegó tal como estaba previsto, incluso un dia antes. Practicamente nuevo. Es muy facil de leer y lo aconsejo a todos los que estudian francés.