Building a Home with My Husband: A Journey Through the Renovation of Love

by Rachel Simon

Book Overview

The bestselling and highly acclaimed author of "Riding the Bus with My Sister" returns with an illuminating and tenderhearted memoir about the unexpected ways a home renovation can change a life.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0525951202
• ISBN13: 9780525951209
• Release Date: June 2009
• Publisher: Dutton Books
• Length: 259 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.6" x 8.3"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Delightful and insightful

This is a quiet read of a book. What I really enjoyed about the book was the honest watershed moments the author has in finding the purpose of love in her life. The book is mainly about her discovering the "ahh ha" moments in her life while supporting her husbands desire in renovating the house (she would rather sell after it is broken into). The book also visits the relationships between her and her mother, sisters, but mainly her faithful husband. I really enjoyed the book because it is a book you can leave and come easily pick back up. It is not a book you will HAVE to stay up at night to read the whole book in a single reading. I am not sure she needs to be so detailed in the actual renovation of the house because it does slow the book down alittle bit. But I love her style of writing and pulling from her first book, which I will be wanting to read now. I would recommend this book for quiet and lazy afternoons.

A story about family and home

Rachel Simon is a wonderful storyteller and writer. She can make a topic as mundane (and chaotic!) as home renovation meander through a story about family, abandonment and love weave into one. This is a special talent few writers can achieve. I was expecting a story about a quarreling couple fighting over where the new deck should go, the price of goods and city ordinances. And although we do learn about such things, these topics do not overtake the reader. Obstacles are encountered and overcome with humor and sensitivity and the couple tackle the next problem. The interesting thing is that there always ARE problems with the house and neighbors and costly hidden fees. Readers familiar with Simon's previous book "Riding the Bus With My Sister" should be used to Rachel's writing style, but this book, which reads like a sequel to her book about Beth on the bus, adds more insight into her own pains and agonies of her own family and the battles she fought as a younger woman over her own mother and mentally disabled sister. Some of these characters return for more detail as people of Rachel's past. This home renovation, then, is more than just a diary of what it took to renovate this house on Teacher's Lane, it's also a book about discovering her own self, her painful past, old friends, even older ghosts, and overcoming fears (that began with a home burglary). Simon details the memories we all experience when packing up a household ends up being more about a long walk down Memory Lane. Alas, it's not just a walk down Memory Lane though. Just as the title suggests, the house that Rachel moved in with her now husband Hal evolved from a painful and crowded house into a home, a house that they renovated together to build into a home, now finished and ready for the couple to call their very own. People who read this book expecting expert advice on what to calculate when taking on a renovation job may be disappointed in this book's tempo. (Much of the home renovation prices are revealed at the end of the book). This book is more about the commitment one takes on when renovating a house into a home. Much like finally getting married to the same man one has spent almost 20 years with, "Building a Home" is a love story about dedicated love, pain and sacrifice and understanding one's own inner fears. This book may tempt other couples to take on the same task in order to strenghten their own marriage. Be warned though: only the strong will survive.

Insightful and beautiful.

This book was a lovely surprise. When I read a description of a book and it says it's going to have insights into love and relationships, I usually set myself up for disappointment. However, this book did not fail to impress. Any revelations about love and relationships the author experienced were discussed openly and honestly. It was refreshing, and felt less like the author was preaching to you and more like she was simply sharing. I really did feel a deep connection with the things she wrote about, and felt they were true on a deep level. An excellent read.

Finding the Tools of Grownups

Finding The Toolbox of Grownups Since I just really loved Riding the Bus With My Sister, I was honored to get a preview copy of Building a House with My Husband. I've ordered several copies for friends whose marriages are hanging by a thread, and just over a kitchen or bathroom remodel! This will help them on so many levels, especially the level of a good laugh. Rachel Simon and her husband Hal almost didn't make a life together, and the way they met is worth the price of the book (talk about learning how to reach out!). Their individual journeys to find each other, and then make a nest together, describes that uncertainty and fear that we all experience at the outset of any endeavor, be it a relationship or a house. In this book, Rachel comes to terms on many levels with who she is, and the choices she has made, which is the personal journey each of us has to make in this life. I read this book reflecting in fresh ways on my own personal journey and the many crossroads I faced. I am so impressed with Rachel for her willingness to recount her own sometimes painful, but honest path toward being comfortable in her own skin, for finding the grace to forgive the unforgivable, and for being willing to accept new rules in family relationships. Most of all, she showed me, in a subtle way, a little road map toward growing up and coming from gratitude every day, when we are so often tempted toward resentment and self-pity: often toward our mates, sometimes toward other family members, and most especially toward our living quarters. Building a House with My Husband reminds me how we must reach, and keep reaching, toward love every day. And if your house explodes on you, you have to forgive it. Don't miss this book! -Terrell Harris Dougan Author of That Went Well: Adventures in Caring for My Sister

(Building a) Home is Where the Heart Is

I had the great honor of being an early reader of this book. Rachel Simon picks up where she left us at the close of Riding the Bus With My Sister and takes us on yet another revealing and touching journey of both the heart and home. The book is structured very much like Bus, where Rachel weaves a surface story - in this case, it's renovating a house with her architect-husband - with the underlying threads of her inner journey. She deftly covers many relationships of this inner journey, and I related to and found a lot of them really helpful for coming to see my own relationships in a different and very helpful light. The relationship that resonated mosty strongly for me is a relationship she doesn't have. Rachel is a childless adult, and her regrets rise to the surface at the same time the house is being gutted. Rachel willingly, and with surprising and admirable curiosity explores these empty feelings, rather rather than brush them under the carpet, as I am wont to do. I'd like to think that if the carpet in my home had been pulled up, I'd have discussed them honestly, but probably not. What I do know for sure is that this is a topic I have not seen in other memoirs and, as a woman who doesn't have children, I welcomed the opportunity to read someone else's emotions and internal debates on the topic. Rachel's approach to her childlessness is extremely inviting and reassuring and after reading this section I realized what a great book this would be for a book group discussion. Then, as I continued to read about the other relationships in the book, like dropped friendships (boy, who hasn't been on both ends of this one?), or with her mother, or her husband, I realized how we might need more than one book group discussion for this one. By the time I finished Building A Home With My Husband, I couldn't thank Rachel enough for opening the door to help me see my most important relationships in more forgiving and loving ways. It also helped me understand and accept my own decisions in new ways. What a delight to read an author who opens the door to both her home and her heart to readers, all in the same book. Highly recommended!! -Bonnie Neubauer Creator of Story Spinner and Author of The Write-Brain Workbook - 366 Exercises to Liberate Your Writing, and the follow-up book, Take Ten for Writers. www.BonnieNeubauer.com