The House We Grew Up In: Book summary and reviews of The House We Grew Up In by Lisa Jewell

The House We Grew Up In

by Lisa Jewell

The House We Grew Up In by Lisa Jewell X
The House We Grew Up In by Lisa Jewell
Buy This Book

About this book

Book Summary

"Clever, intelligent…wonderful" (Jojo Moyes, New York Times bestselling author of Me Before You).

Meet the Bird family. They live in a honey-colored house in a picture-perfect Cotswolds village, with rambling, unkempt gardens stretching beyond. Pragmatic Meg, dreamy Beth, and tow-headed twins Rory and Rhys all attend the village school and eat home-cooked meals together every night. Their father is a sweet gangly man named Colin, who still looks like a teenager with floppy hair and owlish, round-framed glasses. Their mother is a beautiful hippy named Lorelei, who exists entirely in the moment. And she makes every moment sparkle in her children's lives.

Then one Easter weekend, tragedy comes to call. The event is so devastating that, almost imperceptibly, it begins to tear the family apart. Years pass as the children become adults, find new relationships, and develop their own separate lives. Soon it seems as though they've never been a family at all. But then something happens that calls them back to the house they grew up in - and to what really happened that Easter weekend so many years ago.

Told in gorgeous, insightful prose that delves deeply into the hearts and minds of its characters, The House We Grew Up In is the captivating story of one family's desire to restore long-forgotten peace and to unearth the many secrets hidden within the nooks and crannies of home.


Download a free Reading Guide

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"This is an absolute page-turner as all of the surviving Birds make their uncertain way back to thehouse they grew up in." - Booklist

"Jewell keeps the reader engrossed with her characters' winding, divergent paths. " - Publishers Weekly

"The plot relies heavily on the melodramatic decisions made by the Birds, occasionally becoming ridiculous. Still, it's a page-turner that will appeal to readers of women's fiction." - Library Journal

"Clever, intelligent, and believable on a subject few of us really understand. Lorrie is one of the most vivid - and complex - characters I've read in years. Wonderful." – Jojo Moyes, author of Me Before You

This information about The House We Grew Up In was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

Write your own review

Elaine M. (Beaver Falls, PA)

The House We Grew Up In
In this book, Lisa Jewell introduces an idyllic family that becomes dysfunctional and estranged after a tragedy strikes.

Not only does Jewell use flashback to tell each character's story; but uses emails between the mother and her lover as an update.

This book would make a good Book Club choice because the book covers many topics : secrets, mental illness, relationships, hoarding, death, and tragedy reactions.

Carole V. (West Linn, OR)

Don't start it in the evening....
I made the mistake of starting it late in the day. I got very little sleep that night! This covers the Bird family over a 30 year period; it includes, hoarding, mental illness, betrayal, lesbianism, incest, and extra-marital affairs. I first thought maybe the author was trying to include too much. But I must say that the book just got better and better. A really satisfying read. It would be a great book club pick.

Lesley M. (Mesa, AZ)

The House We Grew Up In
A great story about family dynamics, secrets that tear us apart and the ties that bring us back full circle.

I enjoyed getting to know the characters of this book; they were well described and easy to relate to. The plot is engaging and I really cared about the characters that grow as the story develops.

I believe any reader that likes books about family with a touch of dysfunction will find this book appealing. Book groups will have many themes to discuss as well.

Susan P. (Boston, MA)

I Wouldn't Want to Grow Up in That House
While the family in this very readable novel would be considered dysfunctional, there are characters to like, even as they struggle. No one really addresses the mental health issues of the hippie hoarding mother and her infantile, selfish ways; the fascinating parts are each family member's decision about to how to live his or her own life as a reaction. What characters do or not do is frustrating, but it was a compelling read. Makes me want to read her other novels.

Sarah N. (Corte Madera, CA)

Great Book...Hope my house never looks like that!
I think everyone fears living in a delicate situation. Lisa Jewell did an excellent job developing the characters in such a way that the reader really cares about them. I also enjoyed the addition of the Internet "dating/friend" of the Mother...it added an interesting insight to the Mother that we would not have had otherwise. In the end, keeping all of the stuff makes perfect sense.

Lauren T. (Orlando, FL)

The House We Grew Up In by Lisa Jewell
What a wonderful read this book is. The characters are well fleshed out, and the story is believable. Reading it feels like you're getting a glimpse into the lives of real people in an average family, gradually learning their secrets and watching them find out who they really are. I've said in past reviews that a book has made me want to read the author's other work. I'll be digging into Lisa Jewell's earlier novels immediately after reading this one.

...37 more reader reviews

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

Lisa Jewell Author Biography

Photo: Lucinda Chua

Lisa Jewell is the internationally bestselling author of sixteen novels, including the New York Times bestseller Then She Was Gone, as well as I Found You, The Girls in the Garden, and The House We Grew Up In. Her debut novel, Ralph's Party, was an instant Sunday Times (London) bestseller, and more recently her books have become #1 bestsellers in Canada and the UK. In total, her novels have sold over 2 million copies across the English speaking world. Her work has also been translated into sixteen languages. Lisa lives in London with her husband and their two daughters.

Link to Lisa Jewell's Website

Other books by Lisa Jewell at BookBrowse

7 more...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

More Recommendations

Readers Also Browsed . . .

more literary fiction...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Become a Member

Join BookBrowse today to start discovering exceptional books!

Find out more


Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: The Postcard
    The Postcard
    by Anne Berest
    Anne Berest's The Postcard — with an elegant translation from the French by Tina Cover &...
  • Book Jacket
    Elektra
    by Jennifer Saint
    Few cultures in history mastered the art of tragedy quite like the ancient Greeks. And very few ...
  • Book Jacket: Salvage This World
    Salvage This World
    by Michael Farris Smith
    In the near-future universe of Michael Farris Smith's Salvage This World, life-threatening ...
  • Book Jacket: Where Coyotes Howl
    Where Coyotes Howl
    by Sandra Dallas
    Where Coyotes Howl may appear to be a classically conventional historical novel — a wide-eyed ...

Book Club Discussion

Book Jacket
The First Conspiracy
by Brad Meltzer & Josh Mensch
A remarkable and previously untold piece of American history—the secret plot to kill George Washington

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    The Little Italian Hotel
    by Phaedra Patrick

    Sunny, tender and brimming with charm, The Little Italian Hotel explores marriage, identity and reclaiming the present moment.

Win This Book
Win Girlfriend on Mars

30 Copies to Give Away!

A funny and poignant debut novel that skewers billionaire-funded space travel in a love story of interplanetary proportions.

Enter

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

Y S M Back A I'll S Y

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.