Home or Away

Find my full review here: https://literaryquicksand.com/2022/02/review-home-or-away-by-kathleen-west/

We're big Kathleen West fans around here – she used to write for LQ! Home or Away is her third book and I was so excited to get approved to read it early via NetGalley.

Home or Away is Kathleen's third book, and I could definitely tell while I was reading it that she's growing and morphing as a writer. I rated both Minor Dramas & Other Catastrophes and Are We There Yet? 5 stars. I loved them! So I was really excited to dive into Home or Away.

The first thing I'll say about this one is that it's definitely the most serious of Kathleen's books so far. Sure, the other two had some serious things happen, where relationships were on the brink of combusting and lives were disrupted. Home or Away, though, deals with the most serious subject matter: Leigh's inappropriate relationship with her coach when she was vulnerable.

This book had a lot of building up to the most dramatic moments, but it was slower than Kathleen's other two. That's the only reason why I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 – it was just a bit slow for me. I knew it was building up to something and I definitely still wanted to read it, but I needed more to happen at times.

I did struggle a little to connect with Leigh. She's just so very opposite of me in some ways that I couldn't quite understand why she was doing what she was doing. There were definitely flashes, though, of her inner workings that clicked more with me. She's so hard on the outside but just fraught with grief on the inside.

The glimpse into serious youth hockey was – man, sports parents can be nuts! The kids are just strung along for the ride sometimes. I just wanted to give the kids some hugs and tell them to have fun.

The tension and awkwardness between Leigh and Susy was hard to read sometimes. I just wanted to shake Leigh and tell her to snap out of it and talk about what happened to her so she could find some healing and some friendship! I really liked Susy – she may just be my favorite character.

Overall, this book was great and suspenseful and deep. Definitely worth a read!