Feels Like Home

Feels Like Home
Author: e.E. Charlton Trujillo
Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers
ISBN-10: 0385733321
ISBN-13: 978-0385733328


Feels Like Home is the story of Mickey, a sixteen year old girl living in a small Texas town. He dad has just died in a car accident and her brother Danny, who has been missing since a mysterious accident several years ago has suddenly reappeared. Mickey, hurt because of what she perceives as his desertion of her is grieving, angry and confused.

The story is an interesting and deeply engrossing one with a lot going on. There’s Mickey and the mystery of what happened all those years ago with Danny. There’s the dead dad, who it turns out was an alcoholic who was violent to Danny. Then there’s Danny himself who is trying so hard to live in this town that blames him for his best friends death, trying to be there for Mickey who doesn’t want him around and dealing with his own demons. He’s kind of this sweet, dark tortured character that you want to know more about. I alternated between wanting Mickey to stop being so mean to him (there’s something about Danny that makes you feel protective) and understanding why she was acting out.

Other interesting characters are Christina, Mickey’s best friend who I really like and want to know a lot more about (hint, hint write more about Christina), Johnny Lee, the rich handsome boy that likes Mickey and Uncle Jack, a relative that Mickey and Danny lived with when their father was incapable of taking care of them. Uncle Jack is the voice of reason but he’s also got his demons. There’s a heartbreaking scene in the book where Mickey sees him sitting alone crying for his dead wife. Also acting as a character almost is the classic novel The Outsiders which I thought was a great touch as it was one of my favorite books growing up.

Feels Like Home is a heartbreaking but hopeful novel. Like e.E. Charlton Trujillo’s first book Prizefighter en Mi Casa, it delves bravely into the dark underbelly of people’s lives and somehow manages to make it shine. She’s a damned fine storyteller and knows how to completely grab and keep her readers engaged and interested. The people in the book are so real and so well defined that by the end of the book, you know them and you care. You really care what’s going to happen to them all.

Read an excerpt here.

The Widow of the South

The Widow of the South was based on events that took place in Robert Hick’s home town. It is the story of Carrie MacGavock, a woman who’s home was commandeered as a field hospital in the time of the Civil War. Mr. Hicks writes eloquently of Carrie, her husband and the wounded soldier, Zacariah Cashwell, she comes to love. Carrie is an amazing and quite human woman. She has lost several children and is very depressed, almost to the point of madness at the time of the commandeering of her home in Tennessee. A bloody battle takes place in Franklin where almost 9,000 men perish.

The battle scene is bloody and most violent, the period is well researched and Civil War buffs will love this book for it’s astounding attention to detail.

Of interest to me, and what kept me riveted to the book, is how this amazing woman fought to keep the dead bodies of soldiers she didn’t even know from being plowed over by rich and bitter neighbor who has lost his only son in the battle. Carrie has the soldiers dug up and re-buried in her own land and creates a cemetery for the soldiers. The real Carrie and her husband actually did this, creating the only private Confederate cemetery.

I was amazed and moved by this book. The author was able to delve into the psychological impacts of war, death, depression and rage, taking us deeply into the psyches of each character. His characters were very real and very human to me. It amazed me that a woman, caught up in her own sorrow was able to care for the soldiers dying in her home, comfort them and then give up her own land to bury them and dignify them. The chaste love story that emerges in the background of this battle, these deaths, the fight for the right to bury them is transcendent and beautiful and illuminates the book with such perfect grace.