The Museum Of Broken Promises by Elizabeth Buchan

          This is a deceptive book as the initial chapters lead you to believe that the bulk of the story will take place within The Museum of Broken Promises in Paris.  The reader is already aware there is a backstory for Laure, after all the prologue makes this abundantly clear.  What the reader is not initially aware of is that the backstory is the actual story and that rather than employ a flashback technique to the story the author has made it more of a flashforward to the present day with the majority of the tale being set in late 1980s Czechoslovakia.  Somehow this left me feeling almost cheated - the title of the novel, the opening chapters, all drew me in to this world and I found myself becoming captivated by the museum and it's strange collection of artifacts.  Unfortunately, little time is spent here.

Despite having been very much alive and fairly cognisant of the world during the time period this novel is set, I found myself having little knowledge of the communist world.  I was aware of East Berlin, I was aware of the cold war might of the USSR, but I had only the vaguest notion that Czechoslovakia was part of it all.  It does feel strange now that Prague, the main setting for this book, is now such a popular city break location and yet has such a dark and tainted past - a past that will be all too real for a high proportion of it's current residents.

Despite the author's best efforts I never felt that I got to understand our main protagonist, Laure Carlyle.  Somehow she remains fairly ephemeral on the page and this prevented me from really managing to stir up any concern for her or to hope that there would be some happiness in her future.  I was intrigued by her host family and the way they interacted with each other and her - Petr and Eva have such a peculiar relationship and the nature of Eva's "illness" is never explained, leaving the reader with more questions than answers (undoubtedly this is deliberate).

I also found Laure's naivety hard to cope with.  Yes, she is young.  Yes, she is hurting after the loss of her father.  Yes, she seems to have been sheltered in her upbringing and have no idea how the world can betray you.  Fairly normal for a girl just out of her teenage years and stepping in to adulthood but what could have been seen as touching merely served to irritate me.  The older, museum curator Laure is a slightly more intriguing character having been forged through her experiences but she still has an almost childlike wonder to her that I found grating.

This novel was not what I expected.  Normally, this is something I tout as a good thing.  However, in this case I feel slightly like a victim of a bait and switch.  It started so well and I understand the need to explain Laure's backstory and how the museum came in to being.  However, I just couldn't get invested in her Prague experiences or her Berlin experiences (which are mercifully brief) and as Prague is good 70% of the book that kind of spoilt it for me.