Your Second Life Begins ... review: Raphaello Giordano's shallow feel-good novel

Your Second Life Begins When You Realize You Only Have One

Raphaelle Giordano

Bantam, $29.99

This awkwardly titled, though bestselling, French novel claims to have made 2 million readers happier. It didn't make me happier. But then, I didn't grow spiritually from reading Eat, Pray, Love. Raphaelle Giordano has created the kind of shallow feel-good novel that resembles a self-help book, with the same tiresome platitudes, the same hyper-focus on personal fulfilment. Camille, a Parisian in her late 30s, has everything she could want: loving family, good job, plenty of money. But she's wildly discontented and when she strays into the path of Claude, a so-called "routinologist", she's quick to follow his unconventional life advice. For all its whimsy, the book's armchair philosophy predictably grates; and the narrative itself isn't emotionally engaging: I didn't care much about Camille or her first-world problems.