Ultimately underwhelming
3 stars
The Girl Who Reads On The Metro is a cute little novel which is being marketed towards 'fans of The Little Paris Bookshop and The Elegance of the Hedgehog'. Personally, I'd substitute Waiting For Monsieur Bellivier for the second of those two. I liked losing myself in this story and could certainly empathise with both Juliette and Soliman's desire to hide in books rather than facing up to the real world. I loved the idea of the passeurs who give out books to strangers based on their perceived need for a specific tome. Even BookCrossing gets a mention leading to characters discussing the journeys books make from reader to reader.- one of the big benefits of paper books over digital editions.
I often felt that I wanted this novel to take bigger risks. Like its main character, Juliette, I felt the narrative seemed too reserved and nervous for the …
The Girl Who Reads On The Metro is a cute little novel which is being marketed towards 'fans of The Little Paris Bookshop and The Elegance of the Hedgehog'. Personally, I'd substitute Waiting For Monsieur Bellivier for the second of those two. I liked losing myself in this story and could certainly empathise with both Juliette and Soliman's desire to hide in books rather than facing up to the real world. I loved the idea of the passeurs who give out books to strangers based on their perceived need for a specific tome. Even BookCrossing gets a mention leading to characters discussing the journeys books make from reader to reader.- one of the big benefits of paper books over digital editions.
I often felt that I wanted this novel to take bigger risks. Like its main character, Juliette, I felt the narrative seemed too reserved and nervous for the themes it tried to explore. Feret-Fleury's characters are displaced persons either mentally because they do not feel as though they fit within their environments, or physically because they are exiled from their home nation. Communication failures lead to isolation which, despite frequent assurances to the contrary during the story, can't always be solved by starting to read a book. Well, not for everyone anyway!
For me, The Girl Who Reads On The Metro was a nice diversion for a rainy afternoon, but I felt this novel could have been so stronger if its ideas were more fully developed. Hints of magical realism could have been given full rein and side characters such as Chloe and the Woman with the Recipe Book allowed to really blossom. I liked the story but ended up feeling underwhelmed!