A quick fun read! Thank you for the advanced reader copy! I don't usually go for this kind of book but enjoyed reading it.

Wasn’t a huge fan of the narrative voice unfortunately, found she seemed to judge pretty much everyone and everything she encountered.

Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the review copy of this title! Unfortunately the writing style isn't for me, I feel very held at a distance, so I'm DNFing this one.

DNF after 40% just wasn't feeling connected to the book.

I liked the concept, but I just felt lost as I was reading it.

Probably a great book for someone that has heard of more of the book titles that are being mentioned.

Just wasn't for me I'm afraid.

There's something about reading a book set in Paris, or better yet, being in Paris reading a book that I can't help but find charming. This book was no different. I adore the idea that someone's job is simply to leave books for other people that might completely change their lives. So many of us do this when we recommend books but imagine being able to do this while on a salary.

A love letter to books and a tale of the healing, transformative power of reading, "The Girl Who Reads On The Metro" is awash with wonderful book recommendations. I loved the concept of the book matchmaking passeurs and was delighted to learn of Ron Hornbaker's bookcrossing. A really lovely read.

I can’t find anything positive to say about this book.
It was boring and lacked a plot at all. The characters were so undeveloped and I didn’t warm or relate to them At all.
A poor book

I'm not sure what it was about this book that I didn't enjoy. It was light, and I read it as something a bit fun between two pretty chunky, heavy books, but I just couldn't get into it. I didn't feel any connection to the characters, and ultimately I did end up giving up.

Thank you Netgalley for a review copy of this book.

Unfortunately, I did not get on with this title. I found the central character a little boring and it was a little repetitive. Not my cup of tea, sorry.

I really enjoyed this book what is not to love about a book with a book theme as a storyline. I enjoyed the storyline loved the main character and goes to show you can do anything as along as you put your mind to it.

The main character, Juliette lives in a world of books, never venturing out of her comfort zone. One day, she is drawn to Soliman's shop and discovers a new way of life.

I finished this book yesterday and I have been trying to decide whether I liked this book or not. I'm still unsure. The main thought I have about the book is that it was odd and not what I expected. Possibly a good, quick read for anyone looking for something a bit unusual.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a free e-copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

Enchanting Tale For Booklovers....
Avid reader, Juliette, rides the Metro each day to get to a job she detests. Meeting Soliman, book shop owner extraordinaire, changes her world when she becomes transported to a world of books and book lovers. A rather wonderful premise and an equally wonderful setting makes this a delightfully escapist read and albeit short it’s very sweet indeed. A pleasure.

This one is a little oddity. I expected traditional frothy 'chick lit' tropes, but it's more of a dark little fairy tale for grown ups with weird leaps of faith and logic in the prose. Telling the story of a woman recruited to research strangers and gift them books, and her descent into their world it's a short snap of whimsy and weird.

Not everyone will like it,but I was quite taken!

What a delightfully quirky book all about the power of books and reading. It couldn't have been anything other than French and at times it was a little opaque for me I found myself unable to put it down.

This sounded perfect to me, but sadly I was disappointed, it’s not to say I didn’t enjoy it, I did. I just found it could have been so much more and better, it wastes so much opportunity, it spends too much time being pretentious. It’s a quirky light read, but could have been so much more

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion

I was intrigued by the title of this book and the story was interesting but sadly it wasn't for me personally, there are lots of references to author's and titles throughout the book as this is the main part of the story so if you read a lot and know your author's. then you will love to read this and follow the journey of The Girl Who Reads on the Metro.

A sweet novel. Being a book lover, and having recently been to Paris, I enjoyed the story. It's interesting, and quite charming, but overall I didn't find it particularly gripping at all. But it's a lighthearted read, and enjoyable.

A short story feel of a novel that should have been a full length exploration in to the love someone has for books. It’s essentially a story of how a book is just waiting to find their right reader and how that reader is waiting for the right book to come into their lives. The beauty is that they don’t know this yet and it’s the girl who reads on the metro’s job to match the two.

A lovely idea but one for a short story as the novel moves too quickly on a surface level. It never really gets under the surface of this book matchmaking which could have been a really meaty and fascinating read.

Juliette - the girl on the metro - seems to be going through some sort of identity crisis/breakdown at the start of the novel but this storyline isn't really explored. She has some sort of break down but then once she finds the books and her new job, everything is fine again. However, once the story does start, it starts quick and she finds this unusual and quirky bookshop and starts work, gets to know the owner well and starts matching books to people on the metro. She travels around a lot, people watches but it’s all very quickly glossed over. An avid bookworm, I wanted to feel her excitement at finding the shop, the joy of matching the books and watching the people but there wasn’t enough of anything. It’s a short novel , a short story really that needed to be a novel.

IT’s about all the good things in life - Books, travelling, people watching, having coffees etc mixed with plenty of philosophical musings , introspective thoughts and French words scattered around. This world of book matching is a lovely idea and the author writes about the french terrorist attacks as a way of showing how this world can help us escape from the real one when we need it most. I just wanted more of this and more depth and discussion. More books. More matching and more travelling around Paris.

But it’s still a gem - one which you will hug to your heart. It carries the message of how books can transport people, change people and more and I will be visiting Paris very soon to see if I can meet Solomon and that store myself!
There’s lovely snippets like this one about book routines:

“Pensive, she drummed her fingers on the cover of her own book, which she no longer opened very often, so absorbed was she in watching other people. The coffee-stained paperback with a broken spine was transferred from bag to bag, from Tuesday’s big shoulder bag — the day when Juliette did her food shopping after work — to the little handbag she used on Fridays, when she went to the cinema.”

Quirky but I need more!

This book had the best of intentions. A quirky story about a woman who finds the power of books after stumbling on a secluded book emporium and its strange owner. She then goes about becoming a passeur, giving books to the people who truly need them. The story, in itself, is hugely interesting and when you stripped the book down to its bare bones it had some lovely parts and brilliant quotes about the power of literature.

But that's about it. This book is endlessly overwritten, with every other sentence delving into emotions and philosophy. It drags the story down. Almost like writing words for the sake of having words. The concept has the potential for brilliance- particularly the Parisian setting- but it struggled to get out of its own writing. I suspect that another author could have done wonders with this thing. It's also surprisingly short- less than 200 pages- and doesn't really get going until about 75% of the way through. Almost like an un-realised novel.

I wanted to like it, I really did. Unfortunately, a good idea just did not translate into a good novella.

As a book lover and a francophile, I really enjoyed The Girl Who Reads on the Métro and would give it 3.5 stars out of 5.

I particularly appreciated the way in which Christine Féret-Fleury hinted at contemporary issues, such as the recent terrorist attacks in France, and how events like these make it easy to be suspicious of others and hide away from the modern world. This book prompted me to give more thought to the power of books in this context, in terms of broadening horizons and developing empathy. I would have loved even more development of the characters and plot, since I felt like I was just getting started at the end of the book.

This was a short, quirky novel which would make a good choice for book lovers and those who would like to give more thought to what and why they read. It would also be an excellent pick for those looking to read more books in translation (the translator, Ros Schwartz, did a great job). Those looking to improve their French may also like to seek out the original version, since the length of the book is not too intimidating.

There is also an unexpected treat for readers at the end, which I loved!

Many thanks to Pan Macmillan and NetGalley for the opportunity to read an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.