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A review by literautres
You'd Be Home Now by Kathleen Glasgow
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Diverse cast of characters? No
4.75
i keep wanting love to be enough, but if it was, you'd be home now.
the amount of rawness in this book really left me in awe. the story tells about emory, the youngest in the family, who had to live in the shadow of her older sister's brilliance and had to take care of her older brother, joey, who is a drug addict. everything started to reach its peak in the worst possible way when one accident that involved both joey and emory killed a girl.
the struggle that both joey and emory went through really got to me personally and i'm guessing, to a lot of people as well. there are so many stigma and misconception about drug addicts in real life, putting them directly into the same category as criminal, when really a lot of us have addictions (not specifically drugs) or other unhealthy coping mechanism because it is the fastest solution, no matter how temporary and harmful it is. the way the story is written gracefully shows what drives addiction, how harmful it is both for the person and for the people around them, how hard it is to get out of it, how it is so possible to have so, so, many relapses and how important a strong support system is.
the phrase "i keep wanting love to be enough, but if it was, you'd be home now." is absolutely haunting and made me cry because it is true. it's not enough. you can tell a person a thousand i love yous, begging them to come home, and you would think it is enough and you can't figure out why it isn't. because it's not. it's not just love and it is not all has to come from you. it is also patience, so, so much patience, willingness to wait and hope, countless apologies and forgiveness, sacrifices, commitment, unrelenting amount of courage and God so many. there are so many. and i think kathleen glasgow has written it so beautifully, not at all romanticized, and also, fairly. the last thing is very important because it is so easy to fall into judgment and unconscious bias when one write this kind of story and i am so incredibly relieved that it's not the case with this one.
the family conflict was also... gripping. i think one of the benefits from reading young adult stories when you are an adult in your midtwenties, is that you get the point from both povs, because teenage years is not a long time ago for you so you can still remember stuff, remember how it felt, even finally makes sense of several things you are confused about until now. and adult years is the one you're stepping into right now so you kind of can see the parents in a more 'tolerating' way (because you're now dealing with the shit they were dealing with as well), even though it's not that you agree. the mother was pretty hard to read, her course of actions made me want to hit my head out of frustration. but later in the book i learned why she behaved that way and she actually tried to unlearn the way she lived and acted before, same case with the father. i also really like the way this is written, it's very human.
oh and not only it is the story of about the addiction, it also highlights how heavy the responsibilities of a support system is. the story is told from emory's pov, who is a person that joey can trust, therefore it shows the burden emory has to bear as well. not only she has to be able to manage her own issues and problems, but she also needs to be the person joey can come home to. she needs to hide her messiness and mistakes because they can't afford a second joey. things like that drive you crazy. it makes you want to stab your head and rip yourself to pieces. emily's character was written quite well, because you can see her fragility but also how resilient she was. there are times, though, when you can get a bit impatient when you read her (especially when you are an adult like me) because she is a white privileged teenage girl therefore she has the traits that make you just want to shake her. but if you can just hold on through it gets significantly better. (also, she is a teenager. of course she is annoying and does not know better however also thinks she can handle stuff all alone. let them learn.)
however, the book is not perfect. it is told from a very privileged point of view, a white rich family, so if you come from a poor family (like me lol) there are several things that will make you roll your eyes. it also doesn't show the role of the drug companies and also dealers profiting from teenagers who barely know better, it doesn't provide a point of view that is compelling enough to give space for the poor people who are trapped in the devil cycle because of poverty and they have no other choices. it only barely scratches the surface about the awful rehabilitation system provided by the government. the pacing is pretty slow at first, and yet jumpy at several parts. also, from what i know addiction affects people differently, and each person has their own experience, so joey's experience might not be how the others gone through. if these are the things that you can't come to terms with when you read a book about drugs addiction i suggest to just pick another book that has more strength in those aspects.
despite all the lacks, this is a book that i very appreciate for how it came to existence. the book was pretty hard to go through (at least for me) but it was so worth it, so still, thank you. thank you for writing this book.
the amount of rawness in this book really left me in awe. the story tells about emory, the youngest in the family, who had to live in the shadow of her older sister's brilliance and had to take care of her older brother, joey, who is a drug addict. everything started to reach its peak in the worst possible way when one accident that involved both joey and emory killed a girl.
the struggle that both joey and emory went through really got to me personally and i'm guessing, to a lot of people as well. there are so many stigma and misconception about drug addicts in real life, putting them directly into the same category as criminal, when really a lot of us have addictions (not specifically drugs) or other unhealthy coping mechanism because it is the fastest solution, no matter how temporary and harmful it is. the way the story is written gracefully shows what drives addiction, how harmful it is both for the person and for the people around them, how hard it is to get out of it, how it is so possible to have so, so, many relapses and how important a strong support system is.
the phrase "i keep wanting love to be enough, but if it was, you'd be home now." is absolutely haunting and made me cry because it is true. it's not enough. you can tell a person a thousand i love yous, begging them to come home, and you would think it is enough and you can't figure out why it isn't. because it's not. it's not just love and it is not all has to come from you. it is also patience, so, so much patience, willingness to wait and hope, countless apologies and forgiveness, sacrifices, commitment, unrelenting amount of courage and God so many. there are so many. and i think kathleen glasgow has written it so beautifully, not at all romanticized, and also, fairly. the last thing is very important because it is so easy to fall into judgment and unconscious bias when one write this kind of story and i am so incredibly relieved that it's not the case with this one.
the family conflict was also... gripping. i think one of the benefits from reading young adult stories when you are an adult in your midtwenties, is that you get the point from both povs, because teenage years is not a long time ago for you so you can still remember stuff, remember how it felt, even finally makes sense of several things you are confused about until now. and adult years is the one you're stepping into right now so you kind of can see the parents in a more 'tolerating' way (because you're now dealing with the shit they were dealing with as well), even though it's not that you agree. the mother was pretty hard to read, her course of actions made me want to hit my head out of frustration. but later in the book i learned why she behaved that way and she actually tried to unlearn the way she lived and acted before, same case with the father. i also really like the way this is written, it's very human.
oh and not only it is the story of about the addiction, it also highlights how heavy the responsibilities of a support system is. the story is told from emory's pov, who is a person that joey can trust, therefore it shows the burden emory has to bear as well. not only she has to be able to manage her own issues and problems, but she also needs to be the person joey can come home to. she needs to hide her messiness and mistakes because they can't afford a second joey. things like that drive you crazy. it makes you want to stab your head and rip yourself to pieces. emily's character was written quite well, because you can see her fragility but also how resilient she was. there are times, though, when you can get a bit impatient when you read her (especially when you are an adult like me) because she is a white privileged teenage girl therefore she has the traits that make you just want to shake her. but if you can just hold on through it gets significantly better. (also, she is a teenager. of course she is annoying and does not know better however also thinks she can handle stuff all alone. let them learn.)
however, the book is not perfect. it is told from a very privileged point of view, a white rich family, so if you come from a poor family (like me lol) there are several things that will make you roll your eyes. it also doesn't show the role of the drug companies and also dealers profiting from teenagers who barely know better, it doesn't provide a point of view that is compelling enough to give space for the poor people who are trapped in the devil cycle because of poverty and they have no other choices. it only barely scratches the surface about the awful rehabilitation system provided by the government. the pacing is pretty slow at first, and yet jumpy at several parts. also, from what i know addiction affects people differently, and each person has their own experience, so joey's experience might not be how the others gone through. if these are the things that you can't come to terms with when you read a book about drugs addiction i suggest to just pick another book that has more strength in those aspects.
despite all the lacks, this is a book that i very appreciate for how it came to existence. the book was pretty hard to go through (at least for me) but it was so worth it, so still, thank you. thank you for writing this book.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Drug abuse and Drug use
distribution of nudity photos without consent