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A review by bookcheshirecat
You'd Be Home Now by Kathleen Glasgow
emotional
hopeful
tense
medium-paced
5.0
“To appreciate what I have, in the here and now. To not miss it. Because it might be gone, at any moment. And we can’t control that, no matter how hard we try. Whatever the universe is, it’s always got the upper hand and we only have this one chance.”
Kathleen Glasgow once again excels at writing emotional stories. After How to Make Friends with the Dark and Girl in Pieces, she's back with another heartwrenching book. You'd Be Home Now is about two siblings whose whole life falls apart after a deadly car accident disrupts things in their small town. This is based on the American classic Our Town, You'd Be Home Now, but I have to be honest that I've never even heard of it 😂 That's why I was a bit nervous going into this story, but you really need no knowledge of the classic at all to enjoy it!
I really felt for our main character Emmy. She's about to start her junior year of high school but was involved in the deadly car accident, that killed one of her schoolmates and left her brother and his friend with a guilty conscience. She got severely injured in the crash and is still dealing with chronic pain in her legs. Emmy's family is determined to clean up their image by pretending everything is fine and sending her brother to rehab in order to recover from his drug addiction. Emmy herself rarely feels seen in her family home, her parents are neglectful and dismissive of her needs. My heart broke for her, as she misses her older brother and gets ditched by her friends because they don't want to have any association with her anymore. The boy next door that she has a crush on is just using her and her parents refuse to give her the proper painkillers for her injury, as they fear she'll become addicted to them. The beginning was tough to read, as Emmy always tries to smooth things out, but knows that, unlike her sister, she's not the golden child of the family.
“We could all probably be a little more benevolent in life. We all live here, after all. We all share the same mighty good company of the stars at night, and everyone deserves kindness, and survival. Everyone deserves to be seen.”
Her relationship with her brother Joey really touched me. If you love books focused on sibling relationships, this is a good one! Joey has always been the troublemaker of the family, yet their parents still favor him over Emmy. He's been struggling with his addiction for a while now and Emmy feels responsible for his recovery, especially now that he's back from rehab. I loved their complex relationship, full of love but also their individual struggles and everything that has been falling apart around them. Emmy feels like she needs to fix everything and keep her brother's secrets, but does that really help him? The dilemma of how to help someone struggling with addiction was very well written here!
At its core, the story is about mental health and recovery. You could tell that the author was drawing from her own experiences to write about Joey's addiction, as she approached the topic with a lot of care. Recovery isn't linear and for addiction, it's a life-long struggle, something that was very well illustrated here. Joey is back from rehab, but he's struggling with his recovery every day and the conflicts with his parents and the people of Mill Haven don't help. The story is full of emotion - love, hope and despair - as Emmy and Joey navigate their new reality. A lot of people in their town blame Joey and his friends for what happened and Emmy's still struggling with these repercussions. You'd Be Home Now really touched me with its raw emotions and honest outlook on addiction, the audiobook in particular was amazing!
“I would have done anything for that feeling, and did. I wish I could feel that way now, to make all the awfulness inside me go away. But I can’t. I just have to sit here, and feel all of it. Every last horrible thing.”
Kathleen Glasgow once again excels at writing emotional stories. After How to Make Friends with the Dark and Girl in Pieces, she's back with another heartwrenching book. You'd Be Home Now is about two siblings whose whole life falls apart after a deadly car accident disrupts things in their small town. This is based on the American classic Our Town, You'd Be Home Now, but I have to be honest that I've never even heard of it 😂 That's why I was a bit nervous going into this story, but you really need no knowledge of the classic at all to enjoy it!
I really felt for our main character Emmy. She's about to start her junior year of high school but was involved in the deadly car accident, that killed one of her schoolmates and left her brother and his friend with a guilty conscience. She got severely injured in the crash and is still dealing with chronic pain in her legs. Emmy's family is determined to clean up their image by pretending everything is fine and sending her brother to rehab in order to recover from his drug addiction. Emmy herself rarely feels seen in her family home, her parents are neglectful and dismissive of her needs. My heart broke for her, as she misses her older brother and gets ditched by her friends because they don't want to have any association with her anymore. The boy next door that she has a crush on is just using her and her parents refuse to give her the proper painkillers for her injury, as they fear she'll become addicted to them. The beginning was tough to read, as Emmy always tries to smooth things out, but knows that, unlike her sister, she's not the golden child of the family.
“We could all probably be a little more benevolent in life. We all live here, after all. We all share the same mighty good company of the stars at night, and everyone deserves kindness, and survival. Everyone deserves to be seen.”
Her relationship with her brother Joey really touched me. If you love books focused on sibling relationships, this is a good one! Joey has always been the troublemaker of the family, yet their parents still favor him over Emmy. He's been struggling with his addiction for a while now and Emmy feels responsible for his recovery, especially now that he's back from rehab. I loved their complex relationship, full of love but also their individual struggles and everything that has been falling apart around them. Emmy feels like she needs to fix everything and keep her brother's secrets, but does that really help him? The dilemma of how to help someone struggling with addiction was very well written here!
At its core, the story is about mental health and recovery. You could tell that the author was drawing from her own experiences to write about Joey's addiction, as she approached the topic with a lot of care. Recovery isn't linear and for addiction, it's a life-long struggle, something that was very well illustrated here. Joey is back from rehab, but he's struggling with his recovery every day and the conflicts with his parents and the people of Mill Haven don't help. The story is full of emotion - love, hope and despair - as Emmy and Joey navigate their new reality. A lot of people in their town blame Joey and his friends for what happened and Emmy's still struggling with these repercussions. You'd Be Home Now really touched me with its raw emotions and honest outlook on addiction, the audiobook in particular was amazing!
“I would have done anything for that feeling, and did. I wish I could feel that way now, to make all the awfulness inside me go away. But I can’t. I just have to sit here, and feel all of it. Every last horrible thing.”
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Drug abuse, Drug use, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Bullying, Death, Violence, and Abandonment