I got this from NetGalley, and as I've expressed before, one thing I like about NetGalley is the total lack of pressure to review books, and therefore, a total lack of pressure to stick with books I'm not really enjoying. When I started Already Home I didn't care for the writing style, and after about 10% of the book,was considering abandoning it. However, shortly thereafter, it grabbed me. It is a love story, but not really a romance. We learn about the love her birth parents have for each other, and for her birth siblings, the love her adoptive parents have for her,and for each other, the love she learns to have with her birth parents and the love that develops between her and a guy, and between her friend and another guy. Jenna also needs to learn to love herself again. I enjoyed watching Jenna's business grow and prosper. I really liked her friend and employee. She'd had a real lack of love in her life, and now is thriving under the love of Jenna and her family. Jenna's birth parents are portrayed as aging hippies, but in doing the math, I discovered that they were my age, and the hippies were definitely before my time. Still, by the end of the book I had learned to care for them and realized that I had pre-judged them by outward appearances. I'll give this book a B. It has a couple of intimate scenes that happen before marriage but they aren't graphic. I liked a lot of things about this book: the characters were complex and well-written, the stories were engaging, and I had strong emotional reactions to several sections. But two things detracted from my overall enjoyment.First, the depiction of the "hippie" family. They represented the extreme of every hippie stereotype and struck me as the product of the imagination of a Texan who has never met a real hippie in her life. Serenity's references to messages from the universe could have been handled with respect rather than represented as the dippy delusions of a nutcase.Second, the resolution of Violet's situation was too pat. Harrumph from big bad Daddy Bear and the problem is all gone.Aside from those criticisms, it was a very entertaining read. It was my first Susan Mallery book and won't be my last.
What do You think about Eindelijk Thuis (2012)?
Liked this book. I expected light "chick lit" and was surprised by the books turn.
—Deb
3.56Very good story-- realistic n believable.Just skipped over the shameless bits.
—Nickolas1993
