Home by Marilynne Robinson

I read Gilead at least ten years ago in college, and then again in the fall for my book club. I loved it so much both times, and both times I swore I would read the sequels, and have had them on my to-read list for years. But our library doesn't have a copy of this one (come on!) and wouldn't buy one when I requested it (I think the only thing they look at is what year it was published when deciding whether to buy it, and if it's old they always deny it), so I had to get around to getting it from the Plano library, and blah blah blah. I finally read it the last few weeks. It was slowwwww going, kind of like Gilead itself, but without all the beautiful writing from father to son, and the introspective musings of the Reverend Ames. This book is actually not a sequel to Gilead, but is concurrent with that one, but set in the Boughton household, mostly focusing on Glory and Jack, who are both home to take care of their aging and soon-to-be-dying father. This book is more a musing on how you can't go home again--or how you can, and things never change, no matter how much you want them to, and how you can still love your family even as you hurt them again and again, and how they can love you back even as they are hurting inside and hurting you. The book was really from Glory's perspective, and I loved how she was there to help her father, but how she really struggled inside sometimes with the decision to be there at home, and her fears of never escaping where she had been the baby of the family. I felt like each person in this book, and each member of the Boughton family, tries their hardest but lets their worst side show--very much like real life in a family. I felt like this book was one of the best depictions of all the messiness of the very real love and very real difficulty of a family, especially for someone who doesn't live up to his family's expectations or who has been gone for a long time. It was a beautiful and heart-wrenching read--not because anything very sad happened; there's not much of a plot here, just like in Gilead; but because it opened up the underbelly of the Boughton family and exposed their worst fears and their best sides as they tried to show how much they loved each other. I could see this book really resonating with people who struggle with going home to their families--and really anyone who has a sibling or parent they don't understand perfectly (so, anyone at all).