My all time favourite is

This story starts out very gently - at first I was bored but as I kept reading I realized there was a purpose to the slowness. The story takes Harold Fry, a newly retired salesman on a 600 mile walking journey that starts with a belief that his journey will keep someone alive and an ignorance of the great distance he has ahead. Along his journey he meets many people from all walks of life and learns to shed his fears and embrace not only differences in them but his own humanity and emotions.

His journey is filled with allegories and a shedding of the comforts of home. He learns to be content with the simple life.

There are many conflicting reviews on amazon or Goodreads and other sites about this story. I chose to read this book on recommendation by a fellow reader.

When I finished reading Harold Fry, I took some time to let the story soak my mind and heart as I found so much richness and humanity and promise in his life. I wanted to be like Harold Fry.


“The world was made up of people putting one foot in front of the other; and a life might appear ordinary simply because the person living it had been doing so for a long time.”
― Rachel Joyce, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“Harold could no longer pass a stranger without acknowledging the truth that everyone was the same, and also unique; and that this was the dilemma of being human.”
― Rachel Joyce, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“Beginnings could happen more than once, or in different ways.”
― Rachel Joyce, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

Another favourite read

I chose not to see the movie after I read this book because the movie trailer took away from the British setting.

This story, a thriller, had so many twists and turns in it and chapter/character and time changes that it was sometimes difficult to follow. In hindsight, I believe this added to the mystery and conflict of the main character, Rachel. Her insights were blurred and confusing because of her alcoholism. She had witnessed a murder on the balcony of a house as she slowly passed by on the commuter train she took daily into the city.

Her calls for help to the police and her friends and ex-husband were ignored because of her drinking - she was stigmatized as an unreliable witness.

Rachel resolved to find out if what she saw was imagined during a drunken haze or really happened. She put her life in danger as well as others as she sought to find the truth. She ended up finding more than she bargained for.

This book will change the way you see people's lives. The characters are cheats, liars, drunks. On the outside they all live "perfect" lives. It's a great story for character development. It's a story of hopelessness, fear, brokenness, loss of identity and finally hope.


“They’re what I lost, they’re everything I want to be.”
― Paula Hawkins, The Girl on the Train

“I am interested, for the first time in ages, in something other than my own misery. I have purpose. Or at least, I have a distraction.”
― Paula Hawkins, The Girl on the Train

“You can’t step directly into a cold stream of water, it’s too shocking, too brutal, but if you get there gradually, you hardly notice it; it’s like boiling a frog in reverse.”
― Paula Hawkins, The Girl on the Train

Other books I read and highly recommend

The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman
Me Before You by JoJo Moyes
Epiphany by John J Geddes
The Pearl that Broke the Shell by Nadia Hashimi
The Girl with the Pearl Earing by Tracy Chevalier
Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier

Happy reading!!

@countrygirl