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There are currently 46 member reviews
for Home Sweet Home
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Penny P. (Santa Barbara, CA)
Home Sweet Home
Not as good as I had hoped but interesting anyway. I think the author did a good job of showing the very large differences in city and country living. Also the ability of people to turn totally against a person even though the cause may have been minimal or happened a long time ago. This was particularly true during the McCarthy era but to a large extent true today. I guess for me, it would have been better if the characters were a bit better developed. I understand it was a true story so it is possible that this is difficult to do without taking "creative license "
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Janine S. (Wyoming, MI)
Thought provoking
Set against the darkness of the scare tactics of the McCarthy era, the concerns raised in this book resonate today and make this book worthy of a read. If you didn't live through the McCarthy era, it may be easy to dismiss this book, but if you did, you know that the intensity of the unrealistic hate based on inference and unproven information that the period generated is a very real one. Based loosely on a true story, the author writes of decent people trying to make the world a better place who must come to terms with deep-seated and often unwarranted prejudice, all of which are based on unproven and distorted information. There are reaffirming moments in the book when good people realize that what bad people do should be countered. The chilling ending is haunting and that it occurred almost 30 years after the original events of the story is intensely thought provoking. The book's structure, however, sometimes got in the way of the story line and its conclusion but nonetheless, I would still recommend the book.
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Karine R. (Highland Mills, NY)
Disconnected
I enjoyed the story of a family heading west to make a new life. I felt connected to the Kusek family and found myself rooting for them along the way. I did not feel the connection of the story to the ending. It was a bit of a slow read. I didn't have the pull to hurry back to this book. I was disappointed with the way it ended.
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Amy S. (Tucson, AZ)
Enjoyable, yet lacking
First of all, I absolutely love the setting and historical aspects of this novel. The author's description of the community and ranching lifestyle are what kept me engaged. In spite of those descriptions, however, many of the characters seemed flat or one-dimensional to me. Not one of them "jumped" off of the page and "grabbed" me like I really wanted them to. I felt very little emotional attachment to any of them. I'm still trying to figure out the author's purpose for adding the 1985 crime. It didn't add to the story in any way for me; rather I found it distracting, unconnected, and unnecessary.
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Kathryn B. (Bronx, NY)
Home Sweet Home
I have mixed feelings about this book. The character development was excellent. The struggles of the Kusek family in adjusting to the prairie and cattle-ranching was well-defined. The threat of McCarthyism was palpable.
However, I found the wording excessive and unnecessary causing me to lose interest. The ending seemed rushed and abrupt.
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Susan P. (Boston, MA)
Home Sweet Home
HOME SWEET HOME is a bit of an ironic title because Rapid City, South Dakota, where a young NYC couple move, seems anything but sweet. The intelligent young couple and their two small children take immediately (really, immediately?) to 1950s South Dakota ranching life, making some friends. The depictions of ranching life, the harshness and mercurial nature of weather, and heartbreak of animal husbandry seem very authentic (to a non-rancher anyway). However, some outcomes seemed too good to be true, and the answer to the initial murder mystery seemed contrived and suddenly made up. The best writing was about the local people. The young couple left NYC and its constraints but found different constraints in the wide open spaces.
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Barbara G. (Dallas, GA)
Interesting Time in Our Country
This book retells a very sad part of history here in the United States; the era of
McCarthyism. The author covers this time of fear and panic as it effects one family in a small town in South Dakota with excellent descriptive writing.
As the book proceeds, this same writing bogs down the flow of the story. I felt a strong connection to Cal and Betsy but that is about all. The story drug along through a good bit causing me to loose interest. The ending of the story was rushed and felt very contrived. I did enjoy parts of the story which is why I gave it the rating of three stars.
