Book Review - The House of new Beginnings by Lucy Dimond
I felt the story was simply just vanilla.
Ever go for a walk and look at the lit up windows of the houses you walk past and wonder who lives there and what does their life look like?
Well, I don’t know what it says about me but, I imagine the lives and problems of the inhabitants of each home I walk past on my walks.
So it was only fitting to read and review The House Of New Beginnings by Lucy Diamond when it was offered to me.
In this story we follow the the lives of three women, all living at Number 11, Dukes Square.
There is Charlotte who is a lonely recluse, hiding from the world following a devastating loss in her past. She has moved to Brighton in the hope of a new start away from her terrible memories of the past
Then there is Georgie who has moved to the city following her childhood sweethearts promotion to manage a big account as a lead architect and further his career.
And finally there is Rosa who has run away from London in an attempt to escape a bad relationship and try to follow her dreams of becoming a sous chef.
So I’m just going to jump into this and say that I didn’t love the book.
There were several things that really bothered me with this story and as much as I tried to get into it and identify with the characters I just couldn’t.
This book had such potential to address personal growth, self empowerment and girl power, but to me it fell short of driving a message or making any impact. I felt the story was simply just vanilla.
Each girl’s life revolved around an issue relating to a man and the only person who carried any hope of empowerment was the oldest neighbour in the apartment block. I had such high hopes that she would leave us with a meaningful message of “love your self, you're worth it” but half way through the book she revealed that she followed her lover to come and live in the UK leaving her children behind in France.
I hated Georgie because her whole world revolved around Simon, her boyfriend. She questioned every move she made in life with what would Simon say or think and whether he’d approve her decision. Even when she shows initiative, taking a leap out of her comfort zone to get a great job, writing for a local publication, she is forever tying to either involve Simon in it or is scared to tell him about it. Meanwhile Simon only cares about him self and how he looks and what he wants. He continuously shows that Georgie’s wishes, ,needs, plans and dreams don’t matter.
Then she finally gets an opportunity to stand her ground and do something for her self, but instead she plays the victim card again, and is left picking up the pieces after Simon leaves her. Instead of being enraged and angry, Georgie spends her time crying over him. At fist I was angry for her and then I was angry with her!!
Stand up for your self girl! Let him crawl back and IF you still want him (because let’s face it he ain’t gonna change) reset the rules of engagement to even out the playing field.
I will save you a rant as to why I disliked each individual character, but I was disappointed to see that each of them needed a man in their life to make them happy.
None of the girls found them self, in the end they only found the man that make them feel complete…. or was that for our benefit?
Instead I would have preferred to have read how each character had truly faced her demons, had learned something from them and had chosen the life path of fulfilment.
Published by Pan Macmillan.
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