The novel was a succes de scandale for its depiction of a young woman breaking up her father's affair.

Cécile, the narrator of Bonjour tristesse, is a pampered teenager. She spends her summer holidays in the south of France in a villa. Cécile has failed her exams but Cyril, a young law student, is more interesting than books. Her forty-year-old father, Raymond, is widowed. His latest mistress Elsa is ousted by Anne Larsen, his late wife's friend. Anne works in fashion, and has come to stay for a short visit at the villa. "I feared boredom and tranquillity more than anything. In order to achieve serenity, my father and I had to have excitement, and this Anne was not prepared to admit." To provoke her father's jealousy, she asks Cyril and Elsa to pretend to be in love. Cyril wants to marry Cécile, and accepts the plan. Anne is in love with Raymond. Elsa represents to Raymond his lost years, but he sees in the beautiful and sober Anne a perfect wife and mother to Cécile. The plan works, Anne drives recklessly away from the villa, and dies in a car accident. Cécile returns with her father to Paris and leaves the summer, Cyril, and her youth behind. The world of the rich and beautiful is hollow, and the care-free existence is lost for ever.