Cats in Paris: A Magical Coloring Book is an eclectic collection of drawings. The first 12 pages are the Paris pages. Though they're my favorite coloring pages in the book, they are ruined for me by having a silly line of text on the page: "Let's take a rest by the Eiffel Tower." Just let the cat be next to the Eiffel Tower - it doesn't require commentary. The cat also visits Shakespeare & Company, Notre-Dame, and Monmarte. That is actually all that has to do with Paris in the book.
There's a lot of pages, like the one above, where the cats are layered with flowers or other designs. It is an interesting concept, but I thought there were too many uses of the technique. I didn't find it particularly enjoyable to have to think about what I wanted to be the "top" layer of color. Sometimes the cats are roughly drawn - the lines don't all connect to provide an enclosed place to color. That didn't bother me too much, but I preferred the cats that had completed lines.
The coloring pages are double-sided, but the paper is good quality and even heavy marker use didn't bleed through to the other side. The drawings often cover the entire spread for 2 full pages of coloring a particular pattern. However, especially in this full-spread designs, the images almost always run through the gutter, making the inside half-inch of the book un-colorable, which is a huge pet peeve of mine. It makes the drawings look unfinished.
The last 14 pages were very disappointing. There are 6 pages of cat postal stamps that really don't appeal to me at all. That's followed up with 4 pages of hipster cats wearing glasses and bowties - also just not good looking cats that you'd want to color. The second to last spread is just paw prints all over both pages. There was a similar pages earlier in the book that also included a cat, so this felt like an overly simplified repeat. I probably won't bother coloring any of those.
Overall, I'd say I'm interested in coloring about half of these cats. Do not get this book if you are really looking forward to coloring Paris, as that's not even an eighth of the content. If overlapping cats and flowers/designs seems appealing to you, you'd probably enjoy most of this book.
The cover of the book is beautiful, but horribly misleading. If all pages were of similar quality, this would be a fantastic coloring book.
FTC Disclosure: I received this book for free from Blogging for Books for this review. The opinion in this review is unbiased and reflects my honest judgment of the product.
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