This book, although rather unusual and a tad annoying at first to be honest, made my perspective about life in general change. Not in a bad way, on the contrary, it made me see that there are a lot of people out there in the world who think differently about the meaning of life than I would. Paloma Josse, twelve years old and highly intelligent for her age, tried to hide her real self at the beginning of the book to avoid being excluded at her school. She enjoyed filming her parents, describing their boring lives and how they were all meant to end in doom. Not wanting to be a part of the mundane and ordinary life she described that everyone eventually ended up living, she decided to plan to commit suicide on the day of her birthday. In other words, Paloma is not at all what she appears to be. It is intentional, the way she hides her true self for most of the book up until she starts forming a friendship with Renee, who in the end, made her re-think her suicide decision and change her mind about it. When it comes to concierge Renee Michel, it is a pretty tough choice deciding if it is Paloma or Renee who hide their true selves more. With Renee, is seems like she does it unconsciously, while Paloma does it completely aware that she’s doing it. Renee is 54 years old, describes herself as short, ugly, chubby and poor. There’s a part of her that seems to think she needs to keep up with the stereotypical image of a concierge or a gatekeeper, even though in reality she is a very educated woman, reading novels by authors ranging from Immanuel Kant and Leo Tolstoy. So is Renee really what she appears to be? Absolutely not. Her true self only starts to show when she develops her friendship with Paloma, and with Kakuro Ozu. Kakuro Ozu, a Japanese business man, is probably one of the only characters in the whole book who does not, in any way, try to hide his true ways and personality. Kind, gentle, and extremely educated, it doesn’t take hi