Name: Joana da Silva's review of Our Stop by Laura Jane Williams
Item: Our Stop
Rating: 5
Author: Joana da Silva

Laura Jane Williams

'The love story you need in your suitcase this summer!' Red What if you almost missed the love of your life? Nadia gets the 7.30 train every morning without fail. Well, except if she oversleeps or wakes up at her friend Emma's after too much wine. Daniel really does get the 7.30 train every morning, which is easy because he hasn't been able to sleep properly since his dad died. One morning, Nadia's eye catches sight of a post in the daily paper: To the cute girl with the coffee stains on her dress. I'm the guy who's always standing near the doors... Drink sometime? So begins a not-quite-romance of near-misses, true love, and the power of the written word. A wonderfully funny will-they-won't-they romance told with real emotional honesty, perfect for those who loved Sally Thorne's 99% Mine and Helena Hunting's Meet Cute. Recommended by Bustle as a 'Rom-Com Novel You Need To Read This Summer!'

Our Stop

Rachel 

‘Joyful, romantic and life-affirming.’ Red Magazine ‘It had me totally gripped.’ Beth O’Leary, author of The Flatshare ‘A love story that is guaranteed to make you smile.’ Closer What if you almost missed the love of your life?

Joana da Silva

21st book read while I'm still home because the Covid-19 is still out there.
THIS BOOK WAS SO FRUSTRATING, yet so good. So many near misses, good lord, I was going out of my miiind. But I loved this book! The banter, the jokes, everything was so on point for me. 
This is the kind of rom-com I love for!

"Nadia gets the 7.30 train every morning without fail. Well, except if she oversleeps or wakes up at her friend Emma's after too much wine. Daniel really does get the 7.30 train every morning, which is easy because he hasn't been able to sleep properly since his dad died. One morning, Nadia's eye catches sight of a post in the daily paper: To the cute girl with the coffee stains on her dress. I'm the guy who's always standing near the doors ... Drink sometime? So begins a not-quite-romance of near-misses, true love, and the power of the written word."--Provided by publisher.

Meg Ferguson

The only books I feel I can give 5 stars to is a book that awakens some emotion in me. I will shamelessly admit that I couldn’t get into ‘our stop’ for the first 50 pages however, I’m one to persevere (and I’m glad I did). 
The backstory involving Nadia and Ben was something I felt added a bit of reality into the novel along with her friends romantic relationship (Emma and Gaby). 
I felt myself constantly sitting on the edge of my seat whenever Nadia and Daniel were around each other, but still kept missing paths. 
The ending was AMAZING!!!! I couldn’t stop smiling. Just wow....
#laurajanewilliams #ourstop #bookstagram #romance

Kailey Rios

i really enjoyed the writing and the characters for the most part but having to wait so long for nadia and daniel to meet definitely made it less enjoyable. if they’d met even halfway through the book, i wouldn’t have minded, but it was drawn out far too long for my taste.

i would’ve liked to have seen more of them together as well, even when they did eventually meet the book was practically over. i don’t mind the slow buildup but the pacing was just super off for me.

Saima A

The idea of this was cute but it just fella little flat for me. Perhaps I should have just borrowed it and not bought it

Emma Kamer

I really wanted to like this book, but I can’t. It was extreemly boring to me. I didn’t get into the story. I understand that the moral of the story is that the characters don’t meet till the very end, but because of that I felt absolutely nothing while reading it. That’s also the reason it took me so long to finish the book. I kept reading, hoping it would get better.

Julia R. Santos 

Disappointing. After reading One Day in December (which I actually quite enjoyed) and marveling at the sheer lack of originality that seems to plague this genre, I found myself more exhausted than entertained. Some notes:
1. I have now learned that introducing elements of literary self-awareness does not improve the quality of the writing. Or the characters. Or the plot.

2. Writing is hard. We all want to be original and brilliant, or, at the very least, fun. But this book felt like a chore. I could feel the craving for validation every other sentence, and those that felt most genuine were not necessarily unremarkable, neither were they groundbreaking, but were brave enough to be honest and thus resonate much more deeply with its audience.
I urge writers everywhere to write for themselves and not their readers. It makes for far more interesting literature. 

3. Have a great day :)

Jana Jenkinns 

I really enjoyed this rom-com. Gave me all the warm fuzzies and made me so happy. Would definitely read again and recommend.

❤️❤️

Nicki

I feel like I would have liked this book a whole lot more if one of them had died in the end when they were about to finally meet each other. Just imagine if Nadia had crossed the road and then BAM!! A truck just slapped her. Or if Danny fell down the stairs and broke his neck. I am just being honest.

I barely give real reviews on books, but this book was SOOOOOOOOOOO annoying. Apparently this is supposed to be a kind of You’ve Got Mail inspired novel with references from this decade like Instagram, Hinge, Tinder and ‘Lust’ Island (aka Love Island). However, I’ve never seen You’ve Got Mail and if this book is what it is like then I will never watch it.

Pros: The female narrator was very engaging and lovely to listen to.

Cons: Everything else.

I have this idea that if I had absolutely read this in print, I would’ve dropped it about 25% of the way in because Daniel gave me creep like no one else and then Nadia gave me whiplash with how quickly her mind changed from one thing to another. Like Daniel just seemed a bit too much. He was too woke, too kind, too much of an unbelievable guy. He had a good job, was kind, respectful, a hopeless romantic AND attractive on top of all that? I just don’t buy it. And then there was Nadia who was so…… underwhelming? Blonde, pretty and smart.. But how smart was she really? Cause all they ever mention is that she works with Artificial Intelligence and I guess that was enough for everyone. She was kind of insufferable as a character to be honest and a bit of a shitty friend. I know that she had a bad relationship with awful Ben but this doesn’t excuse how annoying I found her sorry not sorry. Now that I think about it, her and Danny deserve each other because they are both so dull.

I have always been fond of books about missed connections and timing, but I think I prefer when they are centered around a theme of some sort? Like maybe they were childhood friends or maybe they met on this particular day every year or idk just something more.. I picked this up expecting so much more than what I got. I know there was a story somewhere in here, I just wasn’t able to find it.

Alicia Dixon

taryn

It was a full cheese course of emotions and I loved every moment. 

This had me grinning and laughing in public. A perfect summer rom-com!

Charlotte Rayfield

3.5 stars! Happy and hopeful and relatable and narrated by the lovely Carrie!

Vendija

I'm disappointed. It sounded like a really great book, but sadly it didn't work out that way.

Agata Tereszkiewicz 

Anna Agarwal

Pam Sartain

Our Stop by Laura Jane Williams is a book that I was following the author on Instagram for about a year, and really enjoyed her take on things.

Our Stop is about Nadia and Daniel, who both take the same train (she tries, anyway) to work. Daniel decides that a good way to meet a woman on a train is to put something in Missed Connections in the paper that everyone reads on the train. 

This is the story of their near misses as they nearly meet in a lot of different ways, and was one that I really enjoyed! 

If you liked The Flatshare by Beth O'Leary, then you'll enjoy this! I personally loved both!

Laura Jane Williams has written two non-ficton books, and this is her debut novel! She's currently working on her next book, but is finding the time to promote Our Stop, and tickets for these events have been going quickly!

Our Stop was published on Kindle on 6th June, and is coming out in paperback on 8th August, and is available to buy or preorder on Amazon and on Waterstones. I've found a link to where you can search for local bookshops, including independent!

I was given this book for free in return for an unbiased review, so my thanks to NetGalley and to Avon Books UK (the publishers) for this book.

Check out my GoodReads profile to see more reviews!

Grace Emilia Machon

Sweet, cute and full of nice people being nice. 
I really like millennial Rom coms, left wing love and iced lattes. Yes please. 
Predictable, troupey, but worth an evening of your life.

Natasja

Nadia gets the 7:30 train every morning without fail. Well, except if she oversleeps or wakes up at her friend Emma’s after too much wine. Daniel really does get the 7:30 train every morning, which is easy because he hasn’t been able to sleep properly since his dad died. 
One morning, Nadia’s eye catches the sight of a post in the daily paper: To the cute girl with the coffee stains on her dress. I’m the guy who’s always standing near the doors.. Drink sometime? 
So begins a not-quite-romance of near-misses, true love and the power of the written word. 

This was a cute, sweet and lighthearted read! The book was a bit slow at the beginning but around the middle more things started to happen, which made it more interesting to follow. 
I really liked Nadia’s friends Emma and Gaby. They were characters I could have been friends with as well. 

I would have liked to see a bit more character development of both Nadia and Daniel instead of all the extra people that were added, and a little less dragging towards the end. 
Besides that, it was trying to be a very woke, feminist and liberal read, which was a bit overdone at times for me. So that’s why it only got 3 stars.

Anika | @chaptersofmay

3.5 stars.

This is the most frustrating romance I have ever read, it's very sweet, but there were so many moments I just wanted to scream, I couldn't deal with it. Nevertheless, this rom-com style story was a really fun read. 

Our Stop has a You've Got Mail vibe, with modern and diverse characters and plenty of charisma. Nadia and Daniel are the meant-to-be couple who just seem to keep missing each other, no matter how many times they're destined to meet. I really liked them as characters, and although Daniel seemed to perfect to be true, he was a great central character. 

I also think Romeo, the security guard working in Daniel's building was such a cool supporting element to the narrative. He was kind, caring, open-minded and just all-round chill. I would have enjoyed learning more about him than Daniel's other friend, Lorenzo. 

My main issue with the book is the desperation to be relevant. From beginning to end I got a "How Do You Do, Fellow Kids?" feel and it was just irritating. It was a little bit like BuzzFeed got their hands on this before it was published and just threw in a few ~woke~ comments and millennial stereotypes for humour. 

I was really tempted to skim through with this book too. It's something that's common with slow burners, but if they're done just right, they can keep you hooked. This, for me, unfortunately didn't keep me hooked and I just wanted to characters to actually meet so there could be some real romance. One thing I will add though, is that the wait does feel worth it, and Nadia and Daniel's final meeting is very cute and charming. By that point in the book, you feel like a friend looking in, and find yourself grinning along with the conversation. 

Overall, I loved the city aura and the meet cute moment. I really liked the characters and idea behind the story, but the repetitiveness and constant missed opportunities started to take away from the romance.

Samantha Seney

** spoiler alert **
           I did really enjoy this book, it’s light and heartwarming and you feel all desperate for them to finally meet but it never really happens and it makes your heart ache! 

But what put me off was the entire ‘Eddie-part’, I couldn’t stand it and found myself making a LOT of frustrated noises during it. I just felt like that part of the book could’ve played out better 🤷🏻

Elad Schulman

Overall an enjoyable book. The only thing was that the “will they-won’t they” kind of went on for too long.

Ashlee

I enjoyed this one and it’s humor, but it was a little too over-the-top at times. The male and female main characters actually don’t even meet until over 2/3 of the way into the book, instead having a series of neat-misses throughout the story. Certainly worthy if you’re looking for a comedic escape.

Lisa Beasley

This was really cute. As I have said before contemporary isn't my thing but I enjoyed this. It had the same easy lightheartedness of The Flat Share and the audio narration was spot on. I liked our main characters a lot and was rooting for them all the way through. Though I found myself frustrated by the near misses and tbh the attitudes of the 'best' friends got a little annoying but by the end it was all good. An enjoyable easy read.

Rachel &
Our Stop by Laura Jane Williams

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