The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery

Renee is the concierge of a grand Parisian apartment building, home to members of the great and the good. Over the years she has maintained her carefully constructed persona as someone reliable but totally uncultivated, in keeping, she feels, with society's expectations of what a concierge should be. But beneath this facade lies the real Renee: passionate about culture and the arts, and more knowledgeable in many ways than her employers with their outwardly successful but emotionally void lives. Down in her lodge, apart from weekly visits by her one friend Manuela, Renee lives resigned to her lonely lot with only her cat for company. Meanwhile, several floors up, twelve-year-old Paloma Josse is determined to avoid the pampered and vacuous future laid out for her, and decides to end her life on her thirteenth birthday. But unknown to them both, the sudden death of one of their privileged neighbours will dramatically alter their lives forever. By turn moving and hilarious, this unusual novel became the top-selling book in France in 2007 with sales of over 900,000 copies to-date.

My Take:  This book was recommended to me by a friend that I greatly respect, but I found it a chore to finish.  The first person voice switches between chapters which is distracting to me.  I didn't like the little girl Paloma and was tempted to skip her chapters.  The story dragged slowly in the beginning and I imagine many readers abandon the book before reaching the middle.  The one character I really liked, Renee, did not finish the story as I would have liked to see it done.  And when I got to the end, I wished I hadn't read it.  No spoilers here, but the ending was disappointing to me.  I would not recommend this book.