My favorite experience whilst reading this book was in French class itself when my French professor broke into English while talking about it. As French 221 students we know this to be a semi-rare occurrence, due to the fact that she is not completely fluent. Of the character Boule de suif, she said, "Her name is literally Fat Ball." Immediately, one of the kids in our class bursts out laughing and can't stop for five minutes, so we all start laughing. It was nice. We don't typically laugh a lot in French class. This is because nothing in French is funny. French is terrible.