The Girl Who Reads on the Metro ~ my review

 

If you enjoy reading, you must meet Juliette. And Soliman. And Leonidas. Noticing what others on the Parisian subway and in parks are reading, they sense what people might like to read next and leave that book on a bench for them to "coincidentally" find. In this, they act as passeurs, the term for people who sneaked books into the hands of book-loving Jews in Nazi-occupied Paris. That Christine Féret-Fleury's novel, The Girl Who Reads on the Metro, is a modern-day story makes their secret society all the more charming.

Although the novel includes some relational drama, not least of which is young Juliette's courage to follow her heart into this mysterious, oddball adventure, the story is really about love of literature. Literature expands our horizons and engenders empathy toward others. Although a solitary act, reading can bring us together. Féret-Fleury includes a suggested reading list.

For me, Féret-Fleury's lyrical, sometimes symbolic, descriptions were the most delightful aspect of The Girl Who Reads on the Metro. Oh, how I would love to be able to write literary fiction like this!