The book was so beautifully written, I was in awe the whole time! And if you look at my rating below, it’s one of the rare occasion that I’ve giving ‘Quotability’ a 10/10. For me, a book has to be written in a way that I fall in love with the words, and Féret-Fleury had me head over heels.
9.4Beautiful, Life-affirming, Thought-provoking
Title: The Girl Who Reads on the Métro
Author: Christine Féret-Fleury
Type: Fiction
Published: 2017
Pages: 197
TW: Loss of a Loved One
I’ve thrown around the phrase “like a hug in a book” a fair amount, but I honestly don’t think any book epitomises that phrase as much as this one does! Juliette had such an interesting outlook on life and while I feel that there wasn’t necessarily much plot within this book, it was delightful to see how she approached each new situation.
“It must be part of the inescapable human condition–each person ultimately deaf, impervious to other people’s emotions, incapable of deciphering gestures, looks, or silences, all condemned to give painful explanations with words that are never the right ones.”
I also enjoyed that while there wasn’t much going on, and most of the musings were more like unanswerable questions about the universe, hidden within this book were small teachings, about grief, fatherhood, love, friendship, and longing which gave it a depth I appreciated.
Review overview
CHARACTERS9.5
QUOTABILITY10
Summary
All in all I do think this book’s strength lay in the writing rather than the plot, not that I really had any issues with it, there just wasn’t that much happening. So if you’re fond of slow, meandering books that ponder the meaning of life – this one’s for you!
