Orion The Lido: The most uplifting, feel-good summer read of the year

Good value. Loved the story. Recommend as a good holiday read.

This book was so easy to read. Loved all the characters, flashbacks to the past , new connections and the community. 💙

This is the story of an unlikely collaboration: two women uniting to save a south London lido from imminent closure. Recent widow, 86-year-old Rosemary, and diligent, depressed young journalist Kate rally together with one goal: to save their local pool and in the process they end up saving each other. It is a heart-warming plot with strong ideas about community, friendship, and mental health.Kate is a junior reporter at a local paper in Brixton. She is new to London and struggling to find her feet. Trapped by insecurities, she keeps to herself and tells no one about the crippling panic attacks she periodically faces. Rosemary defies the stereotype of the elderly woman. Deep in grief, having recently lost her husband to cancer, she nevertheless has an indefatigable lust for life that forces her to keep going, however lonely she might feel, however hard facing the day might seem.A sense of loneliness pervades the novel. Insecurities, stress, and anxiety, emotions we all experience at some point in our lives, bring Kate and Rosemary together. They may each be lonely in their own way, but that loneliness connects them and, along with their love of swimming, it helps them both overcome their difficulties and re emerge into society.For Page this is the point of the novel. In a recent BBC interview, Page spoke of her own move from Dorset to London.“People sometimes underestimate how long it takes to build… connections and feel a part of somewhere… Especially in your early ’20s, there’s this pressure that you have to be having the best time… You see things on Facebook and Instagram and feel that your friends are having this amazing time – but the reality is that there’s a lot they’re not posting. For a lot of people it’s not always easy… My hope is that if someone reads [The Lido] who’s had that experience, or if they think someone may be going through it, that it encourages them to talk with their friends or family and say ‘I’ve felt that way as well.’ That would be amazing, if it leads to those conversations.”The story has decent momentum, much of that to do with Page’s simple writing and vivid characterisations. The voices of both Kate and Rosemary are believable and at times deeply affecting. Page’s descriptions of Kate’s panic attacks come through, despite being mostly related rather than shown: “A creature that follows me and can suddenly kick me in the back of the knees.” But it is Rosemary’s situation that hits home. Page has put a lot of thought into how a woman in her 90s thinks and feels: “When she climbs out she is no longer young and is painfully aware of the existence of her knees.” Another beautiful observation simply relates: “She is finding it hard not to cry at the feeling of being touched on her bare skin”.The prose is simple and often effective but it is in dialogue that Page’s talent truly shines: “Never be sorry for feeling,” Rosemary advises Kate. “Never be sorry for falling in love. I was never sorry. Not for a single day.”The characterisations and the themes combined make this a heartening story: positive, charming and direct. Anyone looking for a feel good book need look no further, but that feel good factor can only go so far. Other areas of execution are poor. Dialogue and touches of beauty aside, the writing lacks finesse in places, making it easy to read but also easy to glide over. Her switches between voices quickly becomes grating and shows a lack of narrative control. Chapters are short, generally less than ten pages each, all of them opening and ending with sentences that read like stage directions. Intermittent scenes are given over to peripheral characters, which add nothing to the plot. Subplots are underdeveloped but the main themes of friendship and community are simultaneously over egged and oversimplified. Page shows a naïve sense of right and wrong, with her protestors representing each minority but her council pen pushers and developers white middle class men all: generic bad guys.This is a modern morality tale of love vs. loneliness, kindness vs. anxiety, community vs. commercialism, and for anyone who finds the current dominance of a 24hr news cycle a cause for concern then a dive into this book while calm those stormy waters of anxiety. But for those looking for something deeper, I would look elsewhere.

A charming story which I enjoyed very much.

Mornings with Rosemary was previously printed as The Lido. It is the same book.This was the most charming story about friendship, relationships and coming together as a community. This story's two main characters are Kate, a 26 year old woman who suffers severely from anxiety, and Rosemary, an 86 year old widow who spends her days swimming at the local pool called The Lido. Kate is a journalist and one day is assigned to write a story about The Lido since it is closing. Upon arriving to The Lido to start an interview, Rosemary tells Kate, "You can interview me once you go for a swim." Once Kate swims and starts interviewing Rosemary, the two women create a profound friendship that every person longs to have.I read this book with a group of wonderful ladies and I cannot thank them enough for introducing me to this book. During this pandemic, this book brought a lot of light and a lot of love back into the world even if it was just for a short time. This book touches on love, loss, friendship, aging and the importance of relationships. A book that has captured my heart.