A gripping and heartfelt story about overcoming the past and finding where you belong.
Anna Wilson travels the world as a professional housesitter – stepping into other people’s lives - caring for their homes, pets and sometimes even neighbours. Living vicariously.
But all Anna has ever really wanted is a home of her own – a proper one, filled with family and love and happy memories. If only she knew where to start.
Growing up in foster care, she always envied her friends their secure and carefree lives, their certainty and confidence. And, while those same friends may have become her family of choice, Anna is still stuck in that nomadic cycle, looking for answers, trying to find the courage to put down roots and find a place to call home.
Compelling, rich and evocative, Home is Anna’s journey to discovering that it isn’t where you settle down that matters, but the people you have around you when you do.
Review: I love when we get a book about an unconventional character or an unconventional lifestyle because life isn’t all black and white and we all have our own paths and our own journey and so meeting Anna and finding out about her journey was really special and something which I desperately needed in my reading life.
It was brilliantly frustrating that we get information about Anna’s past drip fed slowly throughout the course of this novel and yet we know that her past is what has shaped her and why has made her who she is today. I love that we get to see the ‘now’ before finding out about the ‘then’ but you have that desperation as a reader to find out as much as you can about ‘then’ because Anna has obviously been affected negatively by it.
It’s so interesting that Anna has chosen to live life through other peoples houses. Her last obviously inspired a lot of this and she is essentially homeless. It just shows that someone without their own home can come in many shapes and forms. I love that Anna is so successful at her job and we do get to find out more and more about why that is. I’ve done some house sitting in my time and it was so intriguing to read about someone who does that full time!
This book also explore the concept of found family and friends often being more of a family than those we grew up with. This is often seen in movies and TV but i don’t think that we get enough of it in books. Kate has such a great relationship with Anna and I loved watching their friendship grow and change as these two women did. I know I will be thinking about where the two of them are now for a long time.
We also get a glimpse into the foster system and what it take for a child to be removed from a home which again is generally only explored in books that are specifically about that issue and not just as part of the main characters life and background. I love that we are getting more of that in general fiction and I think Penny Parkes made some brave but necessary choices when crafting Anna’s story and her character.
This book definitely made me think and opened my eyes to some issues I hadn’t really given much time and attention. I enjoyed the slow feed of information but do be warned, Anna’s story will consume you when you’re reading it.
No comments:
Post a Comment