Reviews

Home Fire, by Kamila Shamsie

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Through most of the book I thought "This is a three-star book." The characters felt cartoonish, the plot overwrought. I was fascinated by the recruitment of Parvais--I find that believable and I appreciate the insight into how someone follows a path so opposite from anything they've ever experienced. I admit I'm a bit slow on the uptake--but finally realized the plot seemed extremely familiar. Ah, Antigone. Given that (no wonder the characters were cartoonish and the plot overwrought! This is a Greek tragedy!), and the fact that the novel provided a glimpse into a world completely shut out for me, I upgraded to four stars.

imogencbird's review

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dark emotional informative reflective 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? It's complicated

4.75

junemoon's review

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2.0

I can't believe this won the Bailey's prize. It's so boring and the writing isn't even brilliant, there's no central soul holding things together, everything is just so simply stated and blasé. I quit 55% of the way through.

girlfrombookland's review against another edition

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reflective tense medium-paced

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

2.0

tarryn_rowlands's review

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challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-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

4.0

littlelarks's review

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5.0

Grief changed its shape to fit your contours - enveloping you as a second skin you eventually learned to slip into and resume your life. Grief was the deal God struck with the angel of death, who wanted an unpassable river to separate the living from the dead; grief the bridge that would allow the dead to flit among the living, their footsteps overhead, their laughter around the corner, their posture recognizable in the bodies of strangers you would follow down the street, willing them never to turn around. Grief was what you owed the dead for the necessary crime of living on without them.
But this was not grief.
[...] It was rage. It was his rage, the boy who allowed himself every emotion but rage, so it was the unfamiliar part of him, that was all he was allowing her now, it was all she had left of him. She held it to her breast, she fed it, she stroked its mane, she whispered love to it under the starless sky, and sharpened her teeth on its gleaming claws.

I am well and truly wrecked, my friends. I came into Home Fires knowing only that it won the 2018 Women's Prize for Fiction. A chapter in I realized it was a modern retelling of Antigone.
I thought I was prepared knowing the source material, I really did, but that ending. Holy s--t y'all.
The entire book has a quiet sort of devastation that crept up on me throughout - it's broken into five central POVs, and I didn't truly get drawn in until the third - but once it had it's hooks in me, it didn't let go. Well written, well crafted, resonant, moving. And then that ending.