OH! How I loved this book!
"I need to make my life happen FOR me, not let it happen TO me" is the theme of this beautiful novel.
The story follows a young woman in 1949 and a young woman in 2018 in New York City..
Though, two very different times, Charlotte and Olivia are fighting for the very same things. They are hoping to achieve their goals and advance their careers.
The world continues to resist their efforts and they both claw their way to make themselves known and to find happiness.
The amazing way this author has been able to bring Charlotte and Olivia together and actually pull the novel to one time period, is absolutely perfect.
This book is not to be missed!

Delightful story. Loved reading about the history of The Subway girls.

The Subway Girls by Susie Orman Schnall is a historical fiction novel that toggles between 1949 and 2018. The overarching premise of the novel is women attempting to dominate a "man's world." It has a definite feminists approach to it, but not in a negative way.

1949 - we meet Claire; a woman attempting to earn a career in the male dominated advertising industry. She meets with rejection after rejection, even to simply enter the typing pool, and finds herself discouraged. She has a doting boyfriend who wants to marry her, but honestly she's not quite sure about the seriousness of his proposal. On a whim, a friend enters her into the Miss Subway contest and she finds herself a finalist. Shocked by this, Claire enters a world of beauty pageant life that she'd never found interesting and it changes her is ways she didn't expect.

2018 - we meet Olivia; a brash and egotistical woman that works in advertising. She consistently pits herself against the men around her and volleys between love interest and arch nemesis. After losing a huge pitch campaign she's down in the dumps drowning her sorrows at the local bar with her gay pal James (this felt a bit contrived) and...wait for it...shockingly meets Jack who happens to be a big whig in transportation and just happens to be seeking a new advertising campaign. Of course he doesn't tell Claire this as he listen attentively to her saga and the NEXT DAY the company she works for is offered a chance to pitch. Hmmmm....

Claire later decides to revive the Miss Subway pageant as a last ditch effort to save face in this industry at which she's failing. Her neighbor just happens to be a former contestant.

So...my thoughts.

I didn't like this book. I wanted to - the premise is sound but the execution is flawed. I found the dialogue clunky, Claire desperate, and Olivia ridiculous and unnecessarily foul at times. The love stories didn't quite add up either and the side story about James felt like it existed for the sole purpose of being able to say "look...I have a gay character in my novel." It wasn't organic and this detracted from the novel.

The writing surprised me for being professionally edited. A lot of trite imagery in the form of unneeded adjectives, adverbs, and similes that often didn't make sense. I understand creating a world for the reader, but this was a world I couldn't get into because it felt false. There was an inauthenticity to this novel I couldn't get past.

I think the juxtaposition between time periods decades apart is a solid idea and I've seen it work - most recently with Next Year in Havana by Chanel Cleeton, but this just didn't connect for me. Claire and Olivia's paths don't merge in the seamless way a "time-hop" novel should and this causes the story to be lost.

I wanted to like this book because I love historical fiction. I wish I had, but I cannot recommend. I give it ☕☕ because the idea is good and the cover is lovely - I just didn't care for the writing or characters.

I received this book as an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I read a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Books like this one make the world a better place! I could not get enough of the lives of either Charlotte or Olivia—whose stories unfold concurrently but in different generational timelines. Charlotte’s excitement begins when she becomes involved with the Miss Subways competition in spring of 1949, while Olivia’s activities and struggles are based in present day. (Both women are centrally located in New York.). After reading this novel intently for a day or two, I felt the need to look up the idea of “Miss Subways”, not realizing that this was an actual segment of New York history! I was pleasantly shocked to discover that this historical and beautiful work of fiction was based on a real contest that ran from 1949-1976! Armed with that knowledge, I devoured the book and loved it all the more! Kudos to Susie Orman Schnall, for reviving this hidden gem and inspiring the same interest in readers as was awakened in herself when she first heard about these women on the radio! I LOVED this novel!

This was a very easy book to read. I finished it over the weekend. It was a wonderful story about the New York MTA's ad campaign called The Subway Girls. Each month a different girl was featured in a poster placed in all the subway cars, along with a brief bio. It was done to increase ridership and interest in nearby ads on the subway cars. This story is about a particular Subway girl and how it changed the course of her life. It was a bit predictable, but still enjoyable. It touched on the hardships of women who wanted careers but were not encouraged to seek out their dreams, due to the pressures of society and also the male-centric nature of the business world. There was also romance and family conflicts. I did like the approach the author took to weave the story from the 1940's into today's time and how the characters were related. My only criticism was that in several places the scene/conversations changed so quickly without a proper seque, so it was a little confusing. Otherwise, it was a delightful story and I learned some interesting things about the 40's in NYC.

I received this book as an ARC from NetGalley.

Using the true "Meet Miss Subways" posters in the NYC Subways from 1941 to 1976 as background, this book follows two women from different generations. It is interesting to see how women's opportunities and expectations have changed from the 1950's to the present day and how far we have yet to go. The women are strong characters in their respective time frames. The book was engaging and I really enjoyed the characters.

I received an advanced copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

I loved this book! I've enjoyed reading books set in this style - bouncing back and forth between the past and present and this book didn't disappoint!

I loved how the history of the Subway Girls were wound throughout the book (and now I can't wait to read more on the actual Subway Girls). While sometimes the plot was a little predictable, it didn't take away from my enjoyment of the book. Olivia, the modern day women working in advertising and Charlotte the 1940s women who wanted to work in advertising both share similar struggles, family dynamics and relationship issues and it all is interwound so well.

I can't wait for this book to come out over the summer and share it with friends!

The Subway Girls

I really thought I would love this book. The subject was so intriguing to me. I really like stories that span over a long time and include the elderly population. I hear stories on NPR and often am prompted to research them more. So when I read that this book was formed from that same point of view, that made me very happy.

That being said, besides the plot of the story, I was not delighted by much more. Some of the characters were so weak and their personalities had drastic changes that were not supported by the story. The dialogue did not flow well and the entire story was very wordy to me. I found myself beginning to skim through some of it in the 3rd part of the book, to just get to the end.

I read a few other reviews, to get a feeling of what other readers felt, and that was a bit strange. It seems either a reader loved the book or did not like it much. I guess that is what makes the world, everyone has their own opinion. I am sorry I am in the part that did not care for this book. I think the Subway Girls is a great place to start a fiction story, it just was not written to my taste.

I want thank St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley.com for the Advanced Reading Copy for my honest review.

I found this book so interesting. As well as being a great story, I learned about the Miss Subways Beauty Contest. In 1949, Charlotte enters the contest as a way to escape working in her father's store. When she goes to the interview, she meets another contestant-Rose. Through an unforgiveable mistake, their lives become interwoven forever.
70 years later, Olivia, an advertising executive, trying to save her career, becomes interested in the Miss Subways Beauty Contest. As she investigates, she discovers a connection to Charlotte.
I hope to read more by this author!

I really enjoyed "The Subway Girls" by Susie Roman Schnall. Set in both 1949 and present day New York City, "The Subway Girls" follows two strong female characters as they chase similar dreams 70 years apart.

In the late 1940s Charlotte is about to finish college and she dreams of having a career rather than getting married to her boyfriend right after graduation. Family circumstances threaten to derail her dreams though, so she applies to the NYC beauty pageant du jour--the Miss Subways contest -- as. away to help out her family financially and allow her to do what she really wants to do. In the process she meets a beautiful, sophisticated new friend Rose who ends up changing the course of her life forever.

In present day NYC Olivia is struggling to win advertising accounts for the boss she's in love with and their struggling agency. She comes across the Miss Subways contests from the past and figures out a way to use them in one of her advertising campaigns, and then she discovers a personal connection to the campaign that will hopefully help her win the account.

The Subway Girls is a fun, quick read that kept me interested the whole way through. I absolutely loved Charlotte and reading about the history of the (real) Miss Subways contests in the 40s and 50s. Charlotte was a strong character and she really came alive on the pages, as did all of the characters in her sections.

The present day sections with Olivia were interesting as well, but at times I felt that Olivia had too much going on. The romance with the boss really wasn't needed and it didn't add to the plot at all. Olivia had a complicated childhood and that part wasn't really necessary either. Neither of these things takes away from the book at all--I still really enjoyed her sections.

If you like reading historical fiction about NYC, you'll really enjoy this one!

I enjoyed this lovely novel set in NYC 1940's. This is always such a interesting fun period. Olivia is a young woman who chooses career over the traditional role of wife and mother. While she waits for the job offers to come, she is entered by a friend in a beauty contest to be subway girl of the month. She is not interested in a modeling career but agrees to try it. Subway girls were featured in posters plastered all over the subway system as a way to promote the people who use the subway system to get places, physical places but also to better places in their career and lives. Olivia is a likable character although not very interesting. Perhaps I was projecting myself to her but I dont know why she would throw away the letter or the man she loved. She seemed be to me an indecisive woman even though I would expect more a strong willed defiant girl would chose career over a traditional life. Regardless, I really enjoyed the history of the Subway Girls and the story was fun to read.

I really enjoyed this story of the “Subway Girls”, chosen to model for posters that were in subway cars from the 1940’s to the 1970’s in New York City. I remember seeing those posters, and nostalgically, loved the chapters dealing with Charlotte and the milieu of Brooklyn in the 1940’s. Women were often limited in choices, but Charlotte was ambitious, and saw the contest as a means to an end, in the present day, Olivia, a former Y & R ad exec, is working on a presentation to wow the MTA. Olivia’s story meshes easily with Charlotte’s. For me, this was a thoroughly enjoyable read, and I highly recommend.

I enjoyed The Subway Girls especially since these women were notable back in the day. So much in the book is quite predictable but it didn’t detract from the flow for me. Light and entertaining....thank you Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for this ARC.

I am a big fan of history and fiction. The two are admirably presented in the book. I learned about an era in advertising that was really an early version of Mad Men! I liked the alternate chapt er of past and present.

The Subway Girls is told in two storylines that merge at the end. It’s the story of Charlotte in 1949 and Olivia in 2018. Sadly, however, those storylines are shallow, lifeless, predictable, contrived and barely credible. You could very early foresee what would be happening between Rose, Mrs. Glasser, and Ben. Yes, very predictable.

Charlotte (1949) enters the Miss Subways contest and becomes Miss Subways when her new friend, Rose, relinquishes her title. Then a bizarre situation is contrived (insert eyeroll) and Charlotte must make a crucial decision.

Olivia (2018), who works in advertising, decides to propose another Miss Subways contest almost 70 years later. Olivia’s neighbor, Mrs. Glasser, just happens to have been a Miss Subways all those years ago. Yes, very contrived.

The love interests in this book reach far-fetched, unreasonable extremes, including Charlotte and her fiancé, Olivia and her two love interests, and even Thomas and Pablo.

The use of grammar, words, and phrases was annoying. There was excessive use of ‘essentially’, ‘incredible/ly’, ‘amazing’, and, most of all, ‘clearly’. (Clearly, there were way too many clearlys.) In addition, the author used phrases that were not of the era, like “… take responsibility for …” which would not have been said in 1949. Also, many of the similes were flimsy, like “… sweat circles under his armpits were spreading like batter pouring into a brownie pan” (oh my).

All in all, I did not enjoy The Subway Girls. Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read and honestly review this book. I sincerely wish my review were more favorable.

Subway Girls by Susie Orman Schnall
Miss Subways was a contest that took place in the New York City subway system from 1941 to 1976. During that time, approximately two hundred women held the esteemed title. The purpose of the program was to show potential advertisers that subway advertising was an effective marketing vehicle. This is the historical note by the author at the end of the book. The story takes place in alternating chapters in two different time frames. 1949, one of the protagonists Charlotte is entering the Miss Subway contest defying her strict father. She is a “modern” woman who wants more from life than what was expected of her in 1949, marriage and raising a family. The other story is of Olivia in present time working for a struggling advertising agency, trying to make ends meet while having a crush on her boss. As part of an advertising campaign, Olivia comes across the Miss Subways campaign thinking she might use some of those ideas. For me, the book took a nosedive from here, the coincidences are just too contrived, as is a 90year old woman who is not only computer savvy, but is well versed with google, Linked In, etc. and capable of a long walk in the park. The predictability of the romantic relationships also added to my lack of enjoyment of this book. The author uses cliffhangers at the end of chapters that keeps you reading, overall this was no more than 2.5 - 3 stars.
Thanks NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press and the author for the advanced copy.

This book follows two women who are very career driven and switches between present day and 1949. It tells the story of the Subway Girls contest that used to be held in New York City. It was enjoyable to learn about this part of history. I really enjoyed the comparison of how it was for women in the 1940s and 1950s and how it is now. If you are a fan of The Dollhouse or The Adress by Fiona Davis, you will enjoy this book.

Netgalley sent this wonderful book to me. Thank you, Netgalley! This is a highly entertaining book about the Subway Girls who were used to advertise to the Subway riders. This business started in the late 40's and was a great opportunity for the lucky young ladies who were chosen as winners. It gave them a way of making a fabulous career. It's based on a true story. The chapters alternate between the 1940's character, Charlotte, whom I fell in love with, and 2018 character, Olivia, whom I wasn't crazy about. If I had liked Olivia just a little bit more, this would have been a five star book for me. I still very highly recommend this book! People are going to love it and I predict huge popularity.

I thoroughly enjoyed this story of the past meeting the present in New York City. The Subway Girls brings together Charlotte, who is working in advertising in the present and her neighbor who had wanted to work in advertising in the 1940s. It was fascinating learning about The Subway Girls campaign, something I had never heard of and surprisingly lasted into the 70s. I loved the story and the fully developed characters. Thanks to Netgalley for an advanced copy of this novel for review.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book! Both main characters were so interesting that I was rooting for them and wanted to be their friend. The storylines (both past and present) were compelling and so deftly woven that I had to keep reading to find out the end. (i finished in two days) I was afraid the message would be too feministic but I was blown away at the positive pro-life, (spoiler alert!) pro-adoption message. My other worry was that sex scenes would be gaudy or over the top but they were implied and the door was shut at the right moment. The dialogue, twists and editing were stellar. I am already looking up the authors other books