At the beginning of the novel, our heroine is distraught by a particularly bad hotel room in Florence. Lucy Honeychurch longs for a room with a view of the Arno River, but instead, her room looks into the hotel’s courtyard. Though she eventually gets her room with a view at the hotel, the rest of the novel is concerned with her quest for a metaphorical room with a view. Sound confusing? Don’t worry, it’s really quite simple. Imagine that all of our lives are like hotel rooms – pleasant or unpleasant, large or small, kitschy or chic, what have you. Now, imagine that your room has a window. It can either reveal a mundane and predictable world, or it can look out to a romantic, exciting, and constantly changing landscape. The latter is the “view” of life that Lucy longs for. The question is, will she ever find it?