Reviews with content warning for Death of parent - Homecoming

I begrudgingly finished it mostly to find out if my initial theory was right, one of the twists is very obvious the other seemed underdeveloped. As a whole it felt like the pacing was off, it was very slow until the last 3 or 4 chapters which attempted to answer all of the questions in quick succession. I think it would have benefited from more time spent with the characters coming to terms with the developments and less specific details and time in the first three quarters of the book.

It really frustrated me that Nora was never considered to be incredibly manipulative, Jess seems to forgive her instantly for taking her away from her mother. Polly felt like she should have been the main character, I was far more interested in her thoughts and experiences. It seemed odd that her and Jess never had a proper conversation about why she actually left her with Nora. The pillow lie (x2) never gets acknowledged and apparently multiple people knew Isobel was innocent and said nothing. Marcus seemingly either forgives Meg for killing his best friend and his brothers girlfriend or doesn’t figure out it was her, either way it’s not believable. The idea that the whole thing happened as a snap decision to ‘punish’ Isobel also doesn’t make sense as it doesn’t align with Megs personality, it would be far more believable that Nora did it.

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kiwichill's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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amy_joy's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious sad

4.75

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queencariad's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective slow-paced

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

4.0

Homecoming had some very powerful lines and moments.

Atmospheric and characters-driven, the way this book shades light on mother-daughter relationships, motherhood, mental health, roots and struggles was definitely captivating.

It is rather slow paced so it got lengthy at times (it’s quite a chunk of a book).

I had guessed one of the major plot twists but it didn’t take away the shock of the confirmation, especially considering the (too?) many others that were to come.

I had one issue with the book within the book format, which tends to take over the main narrative.

4 stars

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