Reviews

Home of Her Heart by Tara Goldstein

hanne98's review

challenging emotional hopeful informative reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

greljo76's review

emotional reflective medium-paced

3.0

I won this in a giveaway and am glad I finally read it. The story and theme of transnational adoption was interesting and a topic I don't know too much about. I like to learn new things and make books open my eyes to different thoughts and ideas so for that, this was good. The problem though is the writing. Like I've seen others say, it is a lot of tell don't show. I felt it was almost juvenile in its writing. Felt more like a middlegrade story than an adult. Some of the subplots didn't really make sense to me and took away focus from the main story. The storyidea is good, the execution not so much. 

lybrarie's review

medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

I won this book in a giveaway and I am glad I got around to reading it, even if it isn't necessarily something I think I would pick up myself. I think it was quite an informative and interesting look at trans-national adoption and definitely took into account the intersectionality of different aspects of such adoption. However I never really gelled with the writing style, it felt very flat and relied far too heavily on tell not show. It took me the majority of the book to be invested in Luisa as a character, although I do think her story was interesting. 

itzjez's review

emotional reflective medium-paced

4.5

polyanna_nas's review

emotional hopeful informative reflective fast-paced

3.5

The story was fine and I learned a lot about transnational adoption (a topic I hadn't really thought about before). However, it took me about two thirds of the novel to really connect to the protagonist, leaving me to be annoyed with her some times during the story. She's a teenager after all - but after reading other reviews, I suppose the telling-not-showing writing style didn't help, either.
Still I'm happy I won this at a giveaway, and I liked it better than expected!

amydgirl's review

challenging emotional hopeful mysterious reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

lilibuus's review

The story so far was fine, but the writing style was very basic. No depth, all sentences were the same: she did this, then this, then this...' like others have mentioned too: all tell, no show
 

milooo's review

informative reflective fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

ok listen. the plot itself is fine, it’s good even. it’s the most intersectional look at transnational adoption i’ve ever read (even if it feels like some elements are kind of diversity checkboxes with no time to be properly delved into, exemplified by the non-binary character constantly being grouped into the category of ‘women’, but i digress). the problem is that the novel has no noticeable style or voice to it. all of the sentences sound hollow, merely describing what’s happening on a surface level, in a kind of ‘and then this happened and then that happened’ tone. it would probably be good for younger readers, in spite of its heavy topics. but even then, the story doesn’t feel as poignant at most times because something will happen and then the narrative will move on and never really unpack it in a satisfying way. the characters also feel hollow and not fleshed out enough precisely because of the tone and writing style. their emotions are named with no significant evidence other than the author’s word. there is no room for the reader to infer or imagine these characters’ feelings, and this applies to significant plot points as well. because i prefer books that require a bit of thinking to figure out, narrative styles like this one, where it feels like the author doesn’t trust the readers to understand subtext, really put me off. too much tell, not enough show :(

awray's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted reflective relaxing sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

mmarques's review

adventurous challenging informative fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

This is an interesting story about the issues of transnational adoption.  I’m not sure that adding sexual orientation identity questions helped the story.