This is Home by Lisa Duffy
Published: June 11, 2019 – Atria Books
Review book provided by the publisher and NetGalley
Description: Sixteen-year-old Libby Winters lives in Paradise, a seaside town north of Boston that rarely lives up to its name. After the death of her mother, she lives with her father, Bent, in the middle apartment of their triple decker home—Bent’s two sisters, Lucy and Desiree, live on the top floor. A former soldier turned policeman, Bent often works nights, leaving Libby under her aunts’ care. Shuffling back and forth between apartments—and the wildly different natures of her family—has Libby wishing for nothing more than a home of her very own.
Quinn Ellis is at a crossroads. When her husband John, who has served two tours in Iraq, goes missing back at home, suffering from PTSD he refuses to address, Quinn finds herself living in the first-floor apartment of the Winters house. Bent had served as her husband’s former platoon leader, a man John refers to as his brother, and despite Bent’s efforts to make her feel welcome, Quinn has yet to unpack a single box.
For Libby, the new tenant downstairs is an unwelcome guest, another body filling up her already crowded house. But soon enough, an unlikely friendship begins to blossom, when Libby and Quinn stretch and redefine their definition of family and home.
With gorgeous prose and a cast of characters that feel wholly real and lovably flawed, This Is Home is a nuanced and moving novel of finding where we belong. (publisher)
My take: This is Home is the story of the people who live in the three apartments in a triple decker home near Boston. Bent (short for Bentley) and his teenage daughter Libby live in the middle, his two sisters live in the top unit, and Quinn Ellis is the newest, first floor, tenant. Bent is a policeman and former platoon leader of Quinn’s husband John. Quinn and John are separated as John deals with PTSD. She didn’t want the separation especially given her current condition. Quinn’s closest friend has been acting strange and no one seems to understand except for the brother of her friend. Libby’s aunts are loveably quirky – I enjoyed their supporting rolls in the novel. There’s drama, everyday life, heart-breaking events that Lisa Duffy wove into a novel that left me feeling upbeat as I turned the last page. It was the right book at the right time. Recommended.
Bookfan 