Iona Iverson's Rules for Commuting
Ratings27
Average rating4
The story of a group of commuters that by chance become friends. Really liked the characters. It's also quite funny. Would love to see a screen adaptation, but I'd be afraid they would screw it up. I'll be adding this one to my list of favorites and rereading.
Easily my favorite read of the year! The characters are relatable and engaging, the story charming and full of wit. I will re-read this at a later date because it was so fun I read it too quickly and didn't fully absorb myself in Iona's sage wisdom.
This book. Is an absolute MASTERCLASS in character development.
The structure of it is that you just watch these people live their lives and see how, through knowing each other, they gradually affect each other and their decisions. I love a found family, as always, but there was just something so special about the one written here. Seeing these people all come together, all of them unhappy or unsettled about something in their life, and just watching them transform through the courage and love they get from each other makes me tear up. I came really close to crying more than a few times in this book. If it caught me in a different mood, I might honestly would have.
I adore every single character in this group, even the ones I disliked in the beginning. This is one of those “state of the human spirit” books that I only read very rarely, but a well-written one just mercilessly strikes you through the heart, exactly like this one did.
Heartwarming and incredible.
I was really happy to discover this author. She had a whole other career before writing and publishing her first novel at 50, calling these books her “Triumphant Second Act.” How inspiring is that?
This story is quirky and beautiful and is a must-read for when you need a reason to love and believe in humanity. There are strong found-family vibes between this group of commuters from different backgrounds and ages who find what they need in each other.The end of the book, with Bea and Iona dancing together, brought me to tears. It was both happy and oh-so bittersweet.“She'd been the proof that he'd made it, the icing on the cake of his new, impressive life. and now the icing had solidified in the life he was no longer sure he wanted.”“Sometimes when you put two very different whole people together, a kind of magic, an alchemy occurs. Bea said that I was like eggs and sugar and she was flour and butter, and when you mixed us together, we were more than just the combination of our ingredients, we were the whole damn cake. And the problem is, when you're used to being a magnificent, mouthwatering cake, it's really hard to get used to being just eggs and sugar once more.”“I realized I'd mistaken control for love.”“There were, Iona had learned, some problems that you really couldn't solve. You just had to find a way to live with them. And if Bea could no longer join her in Iona's world, then she would join Bea in hers.”
Loved this, the characters and story were lovely, hard to find fault with it. My only hang up was how similar the base plot was to Authenticity Project.
Cute, quick, feel-good story of found family among the regulars on the train from Hampton Court to London Waterloo. The linchpin of the group is a post-menopausal lesbian “magazine therapist” who is never without her loyal bulldog Lulu, and a handbag that is just slightly less miraculous than the one owned by Mary Poppins.
