Home making is a quiet literary fiction novel written in a stream of consciousness style. I don’t think this will be for everyone but I appreciate this stylistic choice. There were a lot of passages that I enjoyed. The novel is told from multiple perspectives. The chapters signify who we are following but sometimes it is not always clear to the point where I had to flip back and re-read parts just to make sure I was following the right person. The main character, Chloe, is recently separated from her husband and is living on her own with her dog. She is setting up her home and we follow this theme of home making throughout the book. We also hear from her mother Cybil who is a half Japanese and half French war child. We also hear from Chloe’s best friend Beau who had a complex upbringing in the South. I would have liked to have had both of these character’s explored more because they were much more interesting to me than Chloe. Although this novel is not without its faults I still thought it was a great debut and will be happy to read more from this author.
This book is out on Feb 18, 2020 by Harper Perennial. Thank you to the publisher for an early e-copy of this book. All opinions are my own.
preeti reads 