Mona's Eyes

De: Thomas Schlesser, Hildegarde Serle

Narrado por: Holly Lucas

THE SENSATIONAL #1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER THAT HAS TAKEN THE WORLD BY STORM

Ten-year-old Mona and her beloved grandfather have only fifty-two Wednesdays to visit fifty-two works of art and commit to memory "all that is beautiful in the world" before Mona loses her sight forever.

While the doctors can find no explanation for Mona's brief episode of blindness, they agree that the threat of permanent vision loss cannot be ruled out. The girl's grandfather, Henry, may not be able to stop his granddaughter from losing her sight, but he can fill the encroaching darkness with beauty.

Every Wednesday for a year, the pair abscond together and visit a single masterpiece in one of Paris's renowned museums. From Botticelli to Basquiat, Mona learns how each artist's work shaped the world around them. In turn, the young girl's world is changed forever by the power of their art. Under the kind and careful tutelage of her grandfather, Mona learns the true meaning of generosity, melancholy, love, loss, and revolution. Her perspective will never be the same — nor will the reader's.

Mona's Eyes is a heartfelt, enlightening journey across five centuries of Western art history. With the emotional impact of The Elegance of the Hedgehog and the readability of The Little Paris Bookshop, Thomas Schlesser's sensational debut novel is at once a moving book about the beauty of life and a deeply touching story about the special bond between a girl and her grandfather.

©2025 Thomas Schlesser (P)2025 Europa Editions

It’s a good book full of art and a sweet story

This book is very touching on the way it talks about the art and artist, it’s a book you need to have the art in front of you to be able to absorb it all. Not a book to read quickly

There’s a Worldview

Lots of humanist twaddle leading to the “gentleness” of euthanasia. When that was revealed, I was done. A load of codswallop!

Doesn’t work well as an audiobook

Without a doubt, the discussion of art history is rich and detailed, and it’s almost like taking an art history class. However, it doesn’t really work well as an audiobook because it really would be best to listen to the book and look at the pictures that are being described at the same time. The story of the little girl losing her sight is just used as a backdrop basically to describe 50 works of art in detail. It’s really more like taking a class than it is listening to a story for which the characters are the central theme. I cannot make it through the entire book because painting after painting became Not repetitive but slightly overwhelming since I didn’t really have the pictures to look at- I gave it a try and it is interesting to hear the history of the works of art, but not when I can’t see the art in front of me

a lovely education in art

A 9year old girl goes suddenly blind, which resolves in ~30 minutes, and which cannot be explained. Her beloved grandfather decides to teach her in-depth about 52 great works of art from the museums of Paris, so that she will have the images in her memory in case her sight leaves her again. it is a wonderful introduction to the meaning and importance of Western art of the last 500 years, as well as a charming tale of love between the girl and her grandfather.

Didactic Art History Lecture

This tedious manuscript is so much less a novel than it is an excuse for the author to pontificate on his vast knowledge of art history at the expense of the story. Lengthy sections of exposition describing artwork that the listener cannot see - this totally undermines his premise. The story of Mona and her impending blindness (which could have been so much more compelling) takes a backseat to the didactic droning on about countless works of art. I actually love art history, museums, and art in general, but what I signed on for here was a NOVEL not an imposed endless art history lecture. Where was the editor on this??? Perhaps put to sleep during the overwrought art descriptions. Art is meant to be SEEN not described, second hand!

Beauty

Marvelous, just that. Marvelous. I must come up with more words to achieve the minimum for the review, but I can only leave it with that.