The characters are entertaining and easy to identify with. An enjoyable read for your commute or a rainy day. This book will make you laugh, make you cry. L. And take a second look at the people on your bus or train. Follow the rules or break them? Iona Iverson broke the rules and amazing and unlikely friendships emerged.

An eccentric fifty something advice columnist by name of Iona Iverson takes the train into the office daily accompanied by her little dog Lulu. One of the unspoken rules everyone knows is that people on commuter trains don’t socialize despite the fact they see each other on a regular basis and sit in the same seats. One fateful day a commuter across from Iona starts to choke. The young woman next to her tries to help but her help is ineffective. Iona a bigger than life personality calls out for medical help. A nurse by the name of Sanjay comes to the rescue and saves the business man’s life. Drawn together by this near death experience the regular commuters begin to break boundaries and start talking. As time goes on the small group forms a friendship. With a budding friendship there comes sharing of mostly positive life events and keeping the bad under wraps. As time passes the relationships within the group evolve.
I loved IONA IVERSON’S RULES FOR COMMUTING. It had the perfect balance of quirky characters and believable life events. It was fun, entertaining and heartwarming.
Thank you to Penguin Random House Canada and NetGalley for allowing me to read an advanced digital edition of this book.

clare pooley is really greta at offbeat, quirky contemporary fiction where you encounter a nuanced cast of characters. I love spending time with her interesting groups of people and the side of romance is always nice!

Great cast of characters, who really complimented each other and whose personal lives intersected to form a really heartwarming story! I love how something as typical as a daily commute served as the basis for the story - I mean who hasn't at one point or another created stories about their fellow passengers? It was fascinating to see the reality behind the personas people displayed and how much more depth there was to each character outside of who they presented themselves as on the train. I really loved how Iona herself evolved so deeply throughout the book, regardless of the fact that initially she was the strong, leader who everyone sought and the group seemed to form around. The story lines were much deeper than what I would have expected (look into TW!) but it all came together cohesively and beautifully!

I love a book that brings a bunch of strangers together to become unlikely friends, and Clare Pooley did a fantastic job of creating dynamic and interesting characters in Iona Iverson's Rules for Commuting.
This story is told through multiple POVs, but it is easy to keep track of everyone and I enjoyed how their stories overlapped. The characters are written in such a way that even if their particular situation was unrelatable to me, I was invested and cared about their journey.
I cannot say enough good things. This book dealt with a variety of topics, and there were serious, sad, funny, and lighthearted moments, that all created a realistic look at life. Iona reminded me it's easy to assume what someone is like or about, but the "commute" is just a snapshot of their whole story.
I highly recommend this book, and have already purchased a physical copy for my shelves.
Thank you to the author, Penguin Random House Canada and NetGalley for the digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I want to be Iona’s friend. That’s it.

Joking aside, this was a great ensemble cast of characters; I loved them all. Each was in some kind of transition or difficult life spot, and strangers on a train became a support system.

Each character contributed to the story but I really identified with Sanjay, whose caregiving job keeps triggering anxiety and panic attacks.

Well written and entertaining, I highly recommend!

4.5 stars.
Though I've used the term heartwarming before in relation to a story, I don't particularly like the word, but that's what kept coming to mind after I finished this book. Clare Pooley's story brings six disparate people together who have nothing in common save they are on the same train car together each weekday and they end up becoming friends.

Iona: a magazine therapist who loves the emotional boost she gets from being in the office everyday, but has not much good to say about her editor and many of her coworkers, who see her as old and out of touch.
She goes everywhere with her French bulldog Lulu, and woe to anyone who tries to force Iona to not to keep Lulu by her side, or take her particular seat on the train. Iona sports a capacious bag that contains all the necessaries for her trip to the office and back, such as her tea, her tablet, and the fixings for the perfect drink to wind down while she rides back home.

Sanjay: a nurse in a cancer ward, he is able to talk to anyone there, providing guidance, care, and sometimes just an empathetic ear. He's single, and his mum is a human right lawyer, his dad drives a taxi, and Sanjay has near debilitating anxiety and panic attacks at work. He also is kind, and totally unable to speak to one of the other passengers, Emmie, whom he has a crush on.

Emmie: secretly in awe of Iona, she works in marketing, but feels unfulfilled creating campaigns for toothpaste and the like. She's in a relationship with a man she thinks is perfect.

Piers: a trader whose run of bad luck has been ongoing for way too long. He's got an extravagant life and home thanks to his wife, and bills piling up, and is unwilling to tell his wife that things are looking bad. He is a bit of a blowhard and unsympathetic when we first meet him.

Martha: a thirteen-year old, who takes a compromising photo of herself after a friend's request. Unfortunately, the photo is spread around (thanks internet) and Martha is mercilessly bullied and shamed consequently. She can't talk to the school authorities, or her parents, and is becoming increasingly unhappy and isolated.

David: his marriage is faltering, as his wife is becoming frustrated with the lack of anything new or different he has done to keep their relationship interesting.


After Piers suffers a near-death experience and Sanjay saves him, these people begin talking and sharing their lives with each other, mainly at Iona's instigation, as she's very good at talking to people and giving advice. The six end up supporting and having a profound impact on each other, and all have happy resolutions to their problems (cyberbullying, panic attacks, finding meaningful work, relationship issues, etc.)

This was a book that made me happy. It's low-key, with wonderful dialogue and emotional moments individually as well as amongst the characters. I came to care a lot about each of these characters, and loved how flamboyant Iona was the catalyst for all the wonderful changes that happened in these characters' lives.

Thank you to Netgalley and to Penguin Random House Canada for this ARC in exchange for my review.

This book was so comforting to me. I loved that the main setting of this book was the train and all the characters revolved around it. I felt like I could picture it perfectly right down to an eccentric older woman and her dog. Sometimes with books with multiple different characters and storylines I find myself skimming certain characters sections but I didn’t find that happened at all with this book. If anything I wish there had been a little more depth with each characters but overall a great read.

There was a bit of chatter in the read-along group chat about how this one gave people Anxious People vibes and I definitely agree with that. I feel like everyone could find at least one character that they could relate to in one way or another. The book is told from the POV of several characters, yet it was surprisingly easy to follow. I find it amazing when an author does this and somehow has enough room in the plot to develop each character so you feel you have really gotten to know them, which is what happened with this book. And, what a fun setting for a book – a commuter train with a group of unlikely friends coming together from their daily commute. I loved how the train played such an integral part in this story and how certain events occurred there and just felt so seamlessly woven in.
 
Pick this one up if you love:
-Backman novels
-lovable characters
-fun and fresh setting
-stories of unlikely friendships
 
CW: coercive behavior, emotional abuse, homophobia

I enjoyed this book while I was reading it but in the initial chapters, it didn't draw me back to it when I put it down. I had committed to reading it though so I carried on. I eventually found that I really liked the characters and the plot and wanted to find out how each character's life problems worked out. The result was a very sweet story with delightful characters and I am glad I persisted.

What a fun read! As someone who commutes to work myself, I found myself really relating to the concept of this book. There are always the same people on the same train to and from work, but no one ever talks to each other. You are left to your own imagination in deciding what the story is for each stranger.

I really loved the character development for every character in this book. The author did a great job of making sure the reader got enough information about each person, in order to really understand them. They each felt very real but had their own quirks which made them more realistic.

For the plot of the story, I really loved how all of the commuters on the train were able to come together to help solve each other’s problems. This really shows that you can’t judge a book by its cover, and it pays off to be kind and chat to strangers once in a while.

I would recommend this book to anyone who commutes to work because I’m sure like myself, you would be able to relate to some aspects of this story and find it a great read.

Thank you Viking and NetGalley for my #gifted e-ARC in return for an honest review.

This was such a wholesome read. The characters were wonderful and so relatable and the story was charming.
What would happen if instead of ignoring the people we see day in and day out on our commute, we actually got to know them and engaged with them?? Why you'd make new friends! Here we meet a group of commuters brought together by the wonderful and eccentric Iona Iverson. We learn of the struggles they all face and how you really can't judge someone by the label you give them.
I loved this story. This is the second book I have read by Clare Pooley courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher. I cannot wait to see what she has in store for her next book!

Do you commute by public transport to work daily? If yes you will relate to this book. In a time when we are mostly self absorbed and addicted and concentrated on our phones and work this is a story about getting to know the strangers we encounter daily and the good that can come from making connections outside our usual circle. This book is cute, charming , funny, heartwarming and quite relatable, The characters are quirky yet familiar and it’s hard not to cheer them on in their individual passions and pursuits. A great summer (or anytime) read.

I loved this book with my whole heart. People from different walks of life coming together to lift each other up is one of my favorite things to read/hear about. This books portrays the positive impact being curious about someone else's life can have on people beautifully. I was swept away by how well this book was able to display it's relatively large cast of characters by giving them all detailed backstories and great character development throught it's humble sum of pages. I loved the book didn't shy away from showing the darker side of everyday life to remind us even in a happily ever after there is still some grief. With that being said, I still also enjoyed the dedication to a happy ending story because despite the struggle of everyday life, this book created a great escape with possibilities that life can and will get better. This is a book I can easily recommend to anyone because kindness to strangers should be something everyone should think about from time to time.

3/3.5 stars! This books was so cute and charming. I will always fall for the found family aspect of any book I read, including this one. I do think that this fell into a routine at times, which did tend to bore me but I suppose this pattern is also akin to the commuter life lol.

A story full of friendship and so much more. A feel-good novel complete with humour, love, sadness and lovable characters. A fun summer read. 3.5 stars.

DNF. The book has a lot of potential, I never usually leave a novel unfinished but this several character novel who all commute on the same train day in and day out as well as peaks into their private lives just wasn’t for me.

I couldn’t really get into this one. This was a DNF for me for now. It was slow for me and didn’t hold my attention. However in the future I will come back to it and update my review.

This book reminded me of a Canadian show from the early 2000s called Train 48. It was about a mish mash of people coming home on the train from Toronto.
On one hand it was cool because they were on the Lakeshore Line, which is the line I take home from Toronto, but on the other hand it was so boring, and nothing ever happened and I was shocked to see that it was on for two seasons.

That was this book, an eclectic cast of characters, predictable story lines and the occasional "oh that's nice" moment.
Unfortunately while it was an ok book, not much happened, it was a meandering stroll through a park, nice too look at, but a little boring.
Sometimes the writing can carry a book like that - ie- Sally Rooney, but for this book, I needed more of a story.

A wonderful book filled with great character depth. Surprises you don't see coming along the way. You begin to believe that you are one of the gang taking the train daily. I think that this would make a great stage play or movie. I highly recommend this book. There is something very everyone.