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3.94 AVERAGE
3.94 AVERAGE
Struggling after a breakup and a layoff at work, Jess receives word her beloved grandmother, Nora, has been hospitalized. Jess takes the next flight home to Australia but her homecoming is unsettled after she discovers her grandmother has been hiding a disturbing family history from her. I thought the book was good but a tad long. The twists were original and kept me guessing at the end. I wasn't 100% sold on the device of using a novel within a novel. I appreciate the attempt at creative story telling, I just kept thinking this was some journalist's idea of what happened, not what actually happened. It was distracting in some ways.
mysterious
fast-paced
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
dark
emotional
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This was a bit of a slog for me, and I think it will be my last Kate Morton book. I loved some of her previous books, like The Lake House and The Forgotten Garden, but her later ones have felt too long-winded for me. Still, I was intrigued enough to see if my theories were correct. I got some of it right, but there were some surprises. It wasn’t a bad read - just maybe not my style overall.
adventurous
challenging
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
Mysteries - Why do mother’s kill? Who is the father? Are people really who you think they are? What is a home? Can you really go home? Mothers and daughters?
While the pace of this novel at times was quite slow, my interest was piqued as I wanted to see how the author would deal with the mystery of how the mother Isabelle and her three children died “as if they were sleeping” , did the Dingo’s really kill the baby, and how the author was going to link this incident to the central protagonists Jess, Polly, Nora, Isabel and eventually reveal the truth.
I had my own idea of many of the answers and suspicions, however the author appeared to deliberately include a lot of red herrings to distract the reader.
I enjoyed how the author switched between 1959 and 2018 and intertwined another author’s book about the incident to connect all of the characters and reveal more details to the reader, connections and answers.
A very circuitous route taken to tie up all loose ends.
While the pace of this novel at times was quite slow, my interest was piqued as I wanted to see how the author would deal with the mystery of how the mother Isabelle and her three children died “as if they were sleeping” , did the Dingo’s really kill the baby, and how the author was going to link this incident to the central protagonists Jess, Polly, Nora, Isabel and eventually reveal the truth.
I had my own idea of many of the answers and suspicions, however the author appeared to deliberately include a lot of red herrings to distract the reader.
I enjoyed how the author switched between 1959 and 2018 and intertwined another author’s book about the incident to connect all of the characters and reveal more details to the reader, connections and answers.
A very circuitous route taken to tie up all loose ends.
Compelling mystery
Really loved this mystery that played a lot with unreliable narrators and how the truth lies somewhere in between various people's versions of events. The character of Jess felt a little TOO naive at times, and a few too many twists at the end, but overall a good read.
Really loved this mystery that played a lot with unreliable narrators and how the truth lies somewhere in between various people's versions of events. The character of Jess felt a little TOO naive at times, and a few too many twists at the end, but overall a good read.
2.5
The last 100 pages were good.
The first 450 were slow….. and I had a hard time focusing. I feel like this book could have been like 350 pages and been a lot more exciting
The last 100 pages were good.
The first 450 were slow….. and I had a hard time focusing. I feel like this book could have been like 350 pages and been a lot more exciting
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
There's things I liked and things I disliked about 'Homecoming', and it's difficult for me to rate it. While the likes and dislikes are quite balanced, I do feel like it was better than average and it did keep my attention, but when I'm thinking of how can I put my finger on why, I come up empty.
This is a story within a story, with a split plot line between 1959 and 2018 in Australia. A tragedy still has repercussions into the present and Jess is pulled away from her life in London as this is brought to light by her grandmother, who is absorbed by the past as she drifts in and out of consciousness in the hospital.
Firstly, it's a bit difficult to assess the importance and relevance of these events. For the most part, I was fully detached. There were a lot of other unknowns that intrigued me, such as Nora's relationship with her daughter and granddaughter, as well as just Nora's past and isolation especially in view of her desire to be a matriarch in her younger years. In the first 350 or so pages, it isn't clear why there are these ripples, the affected family members seem so far removed and I much rather stayed in the present.
Secondly, on the same note, I wish we didn't have the first 100 or so pages in this book. It was very drawn out, a slow read that goes over a lot of mundane details. It constructs a very precise picture of where everyone was, what they were doing and what they were thinking on Christmas Eve 1959 in this small town in Adelaide Hills. I didn't think that the story was all that interesting or curious, it didn't retain my attention.
Thirdly, while Kate Morton is often described as having a beautiful prose, I found it quite artificial. Once in a while, there would be a spot on sentence where I'd think that this is why readers love her, such as 'Her brother had never found reassurance in the ordinary, the organised, the well-trodden path', but even this sentence will quickly tell you that there is a lot of telling, not showing. In fact, for the majority of the plot, the characters read black and white, and the author's descriptions speak more for them than their own actions. In a lot of ways this writing style reminded me of Charles Dickens, very descriptive, creating pictures before your eyes, but often so spaghettied that I'd have to go back to read the paragraph again because the exact development was buried inside aesthetically pleasing turns of phrase.
Which is why I say that I'm not sure what I liked here. Of course, being in Adelaide and Sydney again reminded me of my trip a couple of months ago, and I was reminded of the wonderful flora and fauna, the platypus, the echidna, the jacaranda. It also added a different light onto the migration between UK and Australia, going both ways these days.
But the mystery aspect didn't do it for me, and the ending didn't amount to the big bang I was expecting. If anything, I thought the reveal happened too quickly and without many fireworks. The characters that didn't interest me, such as Jess, were given a lot of attention, and those that did, like Polly, Isabel or Percy, were only approached marginally. But I guess the intrigue did work itself into my brain.
And the writing style still held a comfort that though I don't appreciate, it reminds me of times when I was engrossed in classics as child.
There are specific readers to whom I'd recommend this, perhaps those who want to get immersed into a lengthier novel, who believe the prose of olden days was of higher quality and dislike the punchy success of authors such as Sally Rooney or fast paced thrillers that don't build sufficient context.
This is a story within a story, with a split plot line between 1959 and 2018 in Australia. A tragedy still has repercussions into the present and Jess is pulled away from her life in London as this is brought to light by her grandmother, who is absorbed by the past as she drifts in and out of consciousness in the hospital.
Firstly, it's a bit difficult to assess the importance and relevance of these events. For the most part, I was fully detached. There were a lot of other unknowns that intrigued me, such as Nora's relationship with her daughter and granddaughter, as well as just Nora's past and isolation especially in view of her desire to be a matriarch in her younger years. In the first 350 or so pages, it isn't clear why there are these ripples, the affected family members seem so far removed and I much rather stayed in the present.
Secondly, on the same note, I wish we didn't have the first 100 or so pages in this book. It was very drawn out, a slow read that goes over a lot of mundane details. It constructs a very precise picture of where everyone was, what they were doing and what they were thinking on Christmas Eve 1959 in this small town in Adelaide Hills. I didn't think that the story was all that interesting or curious, it didn't retain my attention.
Thirdly, while Kate Morton is often described as having a beautiful prose, I found it quite artificial. Once in a while, there would be a spot on sentence where I'd think that this is why readers love her, such as 'Her brother had never found reassurance in the ordinary, the organised, the well-trodden path', but even this sentence will quickly tell you that there is a lot of telling, not showing. In fact, for the majority of the plot, the characters read black and white, and the author's descriptions speak more for them than their own actions. In a lot of ways this writing style reminded me of Charles Dickens, very descriptive, creating pictures before your eyes, but often so spaghettied that I'd have to go back to read the paragraph again because the exact development was buried inside aesthetically pleasing turns of phrase.
Which is why I say that I'm not sure what I liked here. Of course, being in Adelaide and Sydney again reminded me of my trip a couple of months ago, and I was reminded of the wonderful flora and fauna, the platypus, the echidna, the jacaranda. It also added a different light onto the migration between UK and Australia, going both ways these days.
But the mystery aspect didn't do it for me, and the ending didn't amount to the big bang I was expecting. If anything, I thought the reveal happened too quickly and without many fireworks. The characters that didn't interest me, such as Jess, were given a lot of attention, and those that did, like Polly, Isabel or Percy, were only approached marginally. But I guess the intrigue did work itself into my brain.
And the writing style still held a comfort that though I don't appreciate, it reminds me of times when I was engrossed in classics as child.
There are specific readers to whom I'd recommend this, perhaps those who want to get immersed into a lengthier novel, who believe the prose of olden days was of higher quality and dislike the punchy success of authors such as Sally Rooney or fast paced thrillers that don't build sufficient context.
challenging
emotional
mysterious
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes