DNF Audiobook Review – The Girl Who Reads on the Metro by Christine Féret-Fleury, Narrated by Stephanie Racine (1/5 stars)
Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Length: 4 hours and 47 minutes
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Release Date: October 08, 2019
ASIN: B07YQ3SDRV
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: Borrowed Audiobook from Library
Rating: 1/5 stars
“Juliette leads a perfectly ordinary life in Paris, working a slow office job, dating a string of not-quite-right men, and fighting off melancholy. The only bright spots in her day are her métro rides across the city and the stories she dreams up about the strangers reading books across from her: the old lady, the math student, the amateur ornithologist, the woman in love, the girl who always tears up at page 247.
One morning, avoiding the office for as long as she can, Juliette finds herself on a new block, in front of a rusty gate wedged open with a book. Unable to resist, Juliette walks through, into the bizarre and enchanting lives of Soliman and his young daughter, Zaide. Before she realizes entirely what is happening, Juliette agrees to become a passeur, Soliman’s name for the booksellers he hires to take stacks of used books out of his store and into the world, using their imagination and intuition to match books with readers. Suddenly, Juliette’s daydreaming becomes her reality, and when Soliman asks her to move into their store to take care of Zaide while he goes away, she has to decide if she is ready to throw herself headfirst into this new life.”
Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book. I got a copy of this on audiobook from my library.
Thoughts: I stopped reading this about 30% of the way through (actually I was listening to this on audiobook and I rarely stop listening to audiobooks). This was just plain boring, it was so boring it was putting me to sleep.
I should have listened to the reviews. However, I kept thinking this sounds so cute and it’s short, I will give it a go. Again, I should have passed it by.
This is a wandering read that is incredibly hard to follow about Juliette who makes up stories about people on the Metro as she goes into her real estate job every day. She is supposedly obsessed with books and reading, but admits she has actually been reading very little.
It was so boring, I had absolutely no connection to the story and characters. I think it is supposed to be cute and quirky how Juliette makes up little stories about people around her and this leads her to a volunteer (job?) of finding used books new homes. Unfortunately, it was really not any of those things.
My Summary (1/5): Overall this was just plain bad. Please listen to the reviews and don’t pick this up (like I did), it is a very poorly written book. It is boring and, while it sounds cute, it just isn’t.