Available here (paperback 2023)

Sometimes you accidentally find yourself reading a book that fits your life perfectly for where you are at right now. That applies to me reading The Book of Beginnings by Sally Page. The only reason I read it was because I was ordering a pretty large item on Amazon and it made sense to get a free trial of Prime for the delivery costs and this just happened to be a free Prime read through the Kindle App (on my phone) and I gave it a click.

Focussed around what I often just refer to as -ships (relationships, friendships, families, work connections, neighbours, any social connection to me is some sort of -ship) and the way that they can come and go and change over time felt like a powerful read. It also mentioned some things that I am always telling people when I end up in discussions about -ships with others:

‘I have come to think of it as being on a stage. Sometimes other people are on that stage with you, and sometimes they leave. And like in a play, I suppose, that feels right. They were there for that act or scene in your life. Trying to pull them back on stage would be wrong.’

The main character, though you slowly feel it becomes a collective of characters with equal importance to the story in their own big and small way, Jo finds herself heartbroken and having to head off to London to look after Uncle Wilbur’s stationery shop after dementia takes its hold for him. She is completely alone, surrounded by memories and a shop that is sort of stuck a little in the past and fumbling along to try to find a way to process everything that happened in her life and modernise the shop along the way.

The discussion of the past is done so well though. It incorporates exploring trauma and unpacking it through both Jo’s feelings and triggers to certain moments, the way she interacts with new and existing people in her life, how she approaches new opportunities and experiences as well as new people but on top of all of that by discussing Malcolm’s Christmas Eve ghosts!

And in the end will Jo get what she wants? Will she overcome the past and the trauma to have a new beginning? Very much worth a read for you to find out. A perfect read for me based on what I found myself going through, in some ways a little bit of reading to let me to process some thoughts stuck deep inside my head. Not quite a book that I couldn’t put down but if you knew how long it has been since I actually managed to read a full book then by my standards it basically was. Enjoy some laughter, tears, heartbreak, romance and more along the way.