French Author Antoine Laurain's "Vintage 1954" A Weak Blend of Sci-Fi for the Francophile

"Vintage 1954" is a harmless, somewhat charming time travel fantasy that is a pastiche of Paris chic, time travel mystique that is easily forgettable.  A motley mix of Parisians abiding in the same apartment building along with Bob, from Milwaukee, WI come together under precarious circumstances and imbibe a bottle of "Vintage 1954."  They wake up the following morning to get their cafe au lait and croissant and voila, they've all traveled back to the year 1954.  There's not much  to add this syrupy mixture that aims to cultivate a refined taste for the colorful artists and picturesque quotidian of the epoch.  There is little flair in this facile novel.  The ideas are not nouveau nor intriguing.  This is a sweet blend of nostalgia, romance with non rien regrette.  The novel serves much as a sorbet between courses; a palette cleanser betwixt denser, literary fiction.  Lauren (b Paris 1970) is a best selling award-winning novelist whose most recent novel "Vintage 1954" does not entice me to read more of his works.  Laurain pours out a full-bodied rant about our high tech, disillusioned contemporary world. While back in time, the group concurs "The bucolic scene seemed far removed from the city and the world and they all felt as though they had found the essence of life: humans were not meant to sit in an office chair answering emails...{but} decided that technical advances would lead humanity to great heights."  "Vintage 1954" is to be sniffed, swirled and spit out.  Adieu.