A review by nate_meyers
Home by Marilynne Robinson

5.0

Is it possible Home was even better than Gilead? Ranking aside, this book was incredibly moving and the end almost brought me to tears. It reflected on "home" not as a source of warm fuzzy feelings and belonging, but of exile. Home is written from the perspective of Glory, the Boughton daughter who returns home in her late 30s after a long & failed engagement to what turned out to be a grifter. She hates being home, has always felt she's gotten the short shrift in the family, but needs to care for her dying family. Also coming home is Jack, the runaway son returning home after 20 years. As we know from Gilead, he's hear to see if his father will warm to the news that he has a colored wife and son. But he can't actually bear himself to bring up the news to his father, as every attempt at conversation ends with his father losing his ability to forgive the past.

It's a beautiful book and it was so easy to get lost in it for long stretches. You felt that every character carried their own burdens that they couldn't open up about even to their own family.