Pages: 478
Date published: 30/01/2018
Date read: 30/06/2021
FINDING H’OM’E is a modern day version of the classic hero’s journey (with a girl). A compelling story of one woman’s journey from black market orphan to living in an affluent beach town with her picture perfect husband of twenty years and their three children. The tale is gut wrenching and the heartache palpable. Her path of demolition to discovery is inspirational and riveting.
Thanks to Maria for getting in touch with a gifted copy of this book.
I was a bit confused when reading this as having read the premise, I was expecting something else, a different story. With the premise focussing on “one woman’s journey from black market orphan to living in an affluent beach town with her picture perfect husband”, I was expecting more focus on her backstory and her transition from being a black market baby to this settled woman, but I felt it focussed predominantly on her modern life and her divorce. For example, there was a lot of focus on the rebuild of her house and picking out cabinets etc. that I felt didn’t match the narrative but maybe that’s because I was expecting a different story.
Having said that, once I got my head round a different narrative, I could appreciate Maria’s way of writing which is so beautiful and careful that everything seems so real, so close, so harrowing – almost like you can’t believe this is a memoir and not a fictional novel. You can feel everything she feels so fully.
There is one thing I really liked about this book that I felt had to be mentioned. At the end of the book, Maria documents a conversation she has with her daughter about the writing of this very book. Her daughter is concerned about how she will come across in this book and explains her worries about it all. I’ve read a lot of memoirs and real life stories, and I’ve always wondered how the people mentioned feel about how they’re represented, and I thought that was a very touching moment to include.
Books By Your Bedside 