Justine Manzano In my time working with Sword & Silk Books to produce Never Say Never, I grew to love so many of my publishing sisters. So I’m making it my mission to read all of their work. I may not have time to review them all, but I’m definitely going to read them. Now, between all my editing and writing, I rarely have time to read for enjoyment, so I’m a little late on this one as it came out last week.
And now, without further ado, my review of A Feeling Like Home, by Haleigh Wenger.
Book Summary:
Sixteen-year-old Paige Williams can’t stop self-sabotaging.
Not when her dad gets sick, not when her relationship implodes, not even when her parents send her to another-freaking-state for the summer to live with her sister. Paige just wants to have fun, spray paint a few walls, and block out everything stressful, including her growing concern that she might be sick as well. To make things worse, her parents threaten her with boarding school in the fall if she can’t prove she’s changed her bad habits.
Paige’s parents sign her up for a rebuilding project in Texas where her sister lives. Meanwhile, Paige reluctantly befriends her sister’s straight-laced teenage neighbor, Joey, who is a frequent guest. He’s so different from her, but Paige realizes that may not be a bad thing, especially since being around Joey curbs her urge to vandalize and ignore the rules. He even makes her forget about the debilitating stomach cramps she struggles to hide.
Just as Paige begins to feel settled in Texas, her dad’s worsening Crohn’s disease brings her home to Seattle.
When her own health fails her, she has the choice of staying at home and receiving care. Or, she could go back to Texas and prove for once and for all that she’s more than her mistakes and more than a disease.
Torn between two worlds and two versions of herself, Paige must decide where, and with whom, she truly feels at home.
What I Enjoyed:
What did I enjoy? Um… pretty much everything. The characters, even the most minor, barely mentioned characters in this book, felt like real people. Paige was kind of a mess, and I loved it. There were times I wanted to shake her, especially a decision that occurs near the climax of the novel, and those things made her feel so real.
A big pet peeve of mine is when reviewers say things like “Why did these teen characters act so immature or make these major life mistakes?” I’ve gotten comments like those in my own reviews. The answer? BECAUSE REAL TEENAGERS DO NOT HAVE THEIR CRAP TOGETHER. They just don’t. And we feel that in these characters. Teenagers slip up. They make decisions we might be surprised by, but those decisions make sense by their own internal logic, and Haleigh does such a great job with that in her characters.
I thought it was perfect that the two romantic interests were equally appealing. Nobody was an awful person. Nobody was the obvious choice. It was the perfect way to do a love triangle, and given that despite my own work in Never Say Never, I generally don’t like love triangles, this was one of those books that did it right.
I really enjoyed the chronic illness representation here. In this story, Paige’s father suffers from Crohn’s disease and Paige is feeling ill herself. This was such important representation and done in such a tasteful and real way. And it captured the suffering of the person themselves, but the suffering the family endures as well.
A speedy read, A Feeling Like Home, keeps on moving, building the tension, both romantic and plot-related, with every chapter. Paige is an interesting point of view to follow, and the perfect unreliable narrator. This book made me chuckle and tore my heart out by turns.
What I’d Avoid:
Honestly, I’ve got nothing. I really enjoyed everything about this story. Nothing stuck out to me as negative or something that could have been done better. This was just a smooth, fun, read.
What Can I Learn:
As an author that suffers from a chronic illness, I’ve always been concerned about writing about it. It felt like whining to me whenever I sat down to do it. But in A Feeling Like Home, Haleigh showed me that it’s not whining. It’s telling your truth, and the whole story doesn’t have to be about that, but it can play a major role. And I think, at some point, I want to try it. A thought for the future.
Conclusion:
I thoroughly enjoyed this story. Paige was a trip, the boys she was choosing between were both genuinely good possibilities in their own right, and the family members were all fun characters with interesting story arcs. I loved watching Paige evolve and figure herself out. You’re all gonna love this one.