What a gorgeous feel-good read! Rosemary is in her 80s and her whole life has revolved around the local lido in Brixton, which is now faced with closure. Kate is a journalist on the local paper, in her 20s, and dealing with panic attacks and anxiety. Together they come together and develop a close friendship as they campaign to save the lido. A whole host of likeable characters in the community populate this story, and I thoroughly recommend it.

I absolutely loved this book! I welled up, in public, on three separate occasions. It's a heartwarming tale of community and relationships in London, of all places! I think the main characters are really well formed, fully rounded and I liked them all. Would definitely recommend this book and I think it'll be a great spring/summer read. And the cover is a beauty!

This book is like a hug! Kate, is on the brink of a journalist career and feels more comfortable in her books than she does in real life. Rosemary aged 86, is upset to think the lido might be closing and wants to try everything she can to save it. Kate starts to write a story about it and their joint friendships and campaign begins in earnest.

The story, history, look and essence of the Lido reflects the lives and loves of the two women. They have highs and lows, problems and worries and realise what is important to them and their lives. Its also a story about community and community spirit. But it’s also a nice tale of how swimming can soothe the mind, be a way to escape the city
It’s a gentle read but one I really enjoyed. Sometimes, it;s nice to have a story which warms your heart, makes you smile and leaves you with a glow inside. A female friendship and how young and old can gain in their own way through joining forces over a joint concern. The realisation that the lido is symbolic of so much in their lives.

I really enjoyed this. It just makes you wonder how much of our past with the closure of so many parks, libraries etc are so woven into the very fabric of us and how, if people came together, more good could be done.

I also now want to go for a swim and adopt a dog called Sprout.

I absolutely loved this feel good book. It’s touching, emotional and super sweet. All of the relationships in this story really moved me and I felt myself smiling the whole way through reading it.
It will definitely be one of my favourites of the year and it’s one of those books that I will keep thinking about.

An easy, warming read set in London, this is the story of a community coming together to try and save the local community pool The Lido intertwines stories of Rosemary, an octogenarian Brixton resident living partially in the past, and Kate, a shy woman from Bristol trying to make it as a journalist, whilst dealing with crippling anxiety. This book deserves to become a mass market best seller, filling the often empty space between the thrillers and romance books. I can think of many friends who would enjoy The Lido, an enjoyable quick read from a generous author.

I mostly read thrillers, dystopian books and I enjoy sci fi so this book is really a departure for me ,but I liked the sound of it.I must admit I do enjoy a lovely feelgood book like this occasionally as long as it is not too soppy ! This one was perfect for me it was believable with great characters that jumped off the page and although it has been years since I visited Brixton , the place really came alive made me want to go and check it out I feel like I just spend the last 2 days there it was so realistic.I really liked the central characters and the peripheral ones as well, and the story and pace of the book was good.I thought it was a lovely book and would have no hesitation recommending it as a great Summer read.No spoilers from me you have to read the book for yourself and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.Thanks to the Publishers and Netgalley for an ARC.

One of the most delightful books that I have read for a while. Two ladies, one 86, one 26. What do they have in common? At first sight, nothing. Rosemary has lived in Brixton all her life, her memories are firmly fixed there. Kate is new to the area, lonely , living with house mates who don't seem to know whether she exists or not.
What unites the two ladies? A Lido. A special place of memories for Rosemary, who has been swimming there since she was a child. Suddenly the Lido is threatened with closure, and
Kate is sent in her position as Junior reporter on the local paper to interview Rosemary about her long time connection with the Lido.
So many side stories emerge, all connected somehow to this magical place where so much more than swimming takes place. Meetings, friendships, romances...all are there.
The story of protests and attempts to save the Lido are funny, poignant and fascinating. No spoilers.
I just loved the delicacy with which the two main people in the story are portrayed. A super book.

This book was a pleasure to read. It is a beautiful story which has been written brilliantly. I got totally immersed in this book. I laughed and I cried and I didn't want it to end. I could imagine all the characters and all the sights and sounds of Brixton. The story is about more than trying to save the Lido. It is about friendship, love and a community pulling together.

This is a lovely book written in an imaginative style and covering all sorts of subject matter. At the heart of the story are a lonely young woman and a lady 60 years older than her who form an unlikely friendship. The older woman, Rosemary, has an eclectic group of friends including a gay couple and people from different ethnic backgrounds. All these people unite when they have a common cause which involves fighting authority and big business. A wonderful, heartwarming read.

The Lido was a complete joy to read and I loved every minute I spent in these pages. Both heartwarming and moving, it’s one of my favourite books I’ve read this year. I look forward to seeing this book go out into the world, and to reading anything more that Page writes!

Thoroughly enjoyed this book - a balance between young and old, experience and inexperience and how these things can come together to do great things.

I didn't get on with this book. Thought the blurb was great but didn't get on with the author's style of writing.

this is my first read by this author. Its not my usual theme of writing and somewhat a little different to what i am used to but i carried on and read the whole book so it wasn't too bad for me.
Its about two ladies of different ages in life..... you have 80 odd year old lady and twenty something, and its about how they help each other in life. The book is based around LOVE and even when death is upon us. Its about how communities stick together in good times and bad.

A touching story of love, friendship and community. A gentle, pleasant read. It wasn't one that immediately gripped me but instead drew me in chapter by chapter, until I cared deeply about the characters and the all important Lido. We are shown a beautiful, cross-generational female friendship in Kate and Rosemary that I very much enjoyed seeing develop. Kate's loneliness at the beginning, despite living in bustling London, is palpable and I'm sure a lot of people will be able to relate to it.

Recommend to all readers looking for feel good, character-driven fiction.

Living in Brixton I loved the opening chapters, I could picture myself taking a walk with Kate down the streets.

This is a light, feel good read - I have to admit I was losing interest towards the end as you know where the book is heading, that said it did end with me in tears and surely that's a sign of a good book!

3.5 stars.

Off topic - Love the book cover, very eye catching.

Thanks to NetGalley, Orion and Libby Page for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.

An easy-reading, feel good novel which succeeds in two respects.

Firstly in its non-clichéd characters at different ends of the age spectrum: Rosemary at 86 is still physically and mentally activist - mourning her recently deceased husband but full of memories of their wartime courtship and lengthy marriage: Kate at 26 affected with the same loneliness and hollowness of some mid-20s which was of course recently the key theme of "Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine".

Secondly the book captures a sense of how community in Cities only really exists through shared social endeavours (in this case the Lido) and both the importance of and need for local activism to preserve those communities.

Rosemary is eighty-six and has lived in Brixton all her life. One of her most beloved constants is the local lido, where she swims regularly: 'She can see her fingers ahead of her wrinkling in the water. Her wrinkles always surprise her. Young girls don't have wrinkles. She is a young girl swimming in the morning... before heading to her job in the library - she will have to get changed quickly if she is to make it on time. Her hair will drip behind her as she makes her way up and down the shelves of books.' When the lido comes under threat from a property developer, Rosemary knows she's not only defending a place that she likes to swim, but a place that contains both her younger self and the best memories she has of her dead husband, George. She teams up with twenty-six year old Kate, a reporter on the local paper who suffers from anxiety and panic attacks, but is determined to cover the story of the lido as best she can. Through her friendship with Rosemary, Kate is drawn back into the ambit of a life she thought she'd never be able to take part in again.

The feel-good nature of Libby Page's debut, The Lido, is very on-trend, and the concept is undeniably lovely. But it's let down by its very poor writing. It's not a plotty novel - it's pretty predictable - so it needs to do more literary work to keep the reader engaged. There are good snippets on place and swimming - like the extract above - but Page's prose is otherwise consistently clunky. In the first half of the novel, the narrative occasionally darts into the heads of other Brixton residents, presumably to give a sense of the intersecting lives that meet at the lido, but Page is nowhere near good enough a writer to pull off this If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things trick. Elsewhere, the novel simply seems rushed and unedited, like the line in the second person at the beginning ('You push through the crowds') that is never referred to again.

Rosemary and Kate's friendship is at the heart of the novel, but I found both characters to be scrappy and cliched, as, indeed, is their battle with the local council. While I like the idea of a narrative that centres an older woman, Rosemary is a familiar archetype: devoted to home and family, unhappily childless, endlessly supportive of others. Much is made of the fact she's had a job all her life, but given her cohort (coming of age in the 1950s) this is hardly surprising, especially as, with no children, she would have had no reason to leave work. While avoiding spoilers, the ending of her story simply confirms that her role in the book is to support and empower others, rather than herself; hardly groundbreaking. Similarly, Kate's anxiety is an interesting twist that never goes anywhere, and in fact, I found it slightly worrying that all she seemingly needs to do is 'pull herself together' and get out more to overcome it. The negotiations with the local council become increasingly emotional and unrealistic, even though there's good potential material here about gentrification and community. A missed opportunity - two and a half stars.

A lovely story that keeps you wanting to read it in one go. Definitely recommended.