Spoilery Book Reviews

You'd Be Home Now by Kathleen Glasgow

Back of the book

Emmy is the good one. Not strong-willed like her beautiful older sister, Maddie, and not difficult like her brother, Joey. She takes up as little space as possible. When Joey returns from rehab, her parents ask her to act as his guardian. She's also expected to keep on top of her grades and hold everything together after the tragic events of that summer. The only person who makes her feel seen is her secret lover, Gage, but no one can find out about that...

How long can Emmy keep up her careful balancing act before it topples?

My thoughts

This may sound backwards but I really like books that make me cry and this one delivered in spades. I was sobbing well before the end, which is very on brand for Glasgow's books (in a good way of course).

I'm perfectly accustomed to reading first person novels but this one hit me as intensely introspective. Perhaps the intensity of Emory's emotions hit harder than usual. An important reminder that everyone is trapped in their own consciousness and to practice empathy because we are all the main characters of our lives.

I liked Emmy comparing her own 'addiction' to Joeys. That she was making out with Gage to forget and feel better. Did having this vice make her just as bad as Joey? Are we all 'addicted' to our coping mechanisms but some of them are more socially acceptable than others? I feel it is a truism that everyone has something they do to forget and relax, and it can be a healthy and positive thing or it can be something damaging.

This novel carefully manages the complexities of loving someone and hating them. Of being constantly worried, guilty when you live your own life and resentful that you have to face those emotional challenges. Addiction comes with a lot of stigma and shame. It is ruinous, to everyone involved. As much as the person suffering needs support, some people are not strong enough to be supports all the time without falling down themselves. You can't prop someone up if you're not strong yourself.

It wasn't a strong focus but Joey losing his friend group was a really important aspect to me. A good support system in recovery requires friends, but to keep himself from temptation he was no longer advised to keep the same friends. Losing friends that way is devastating because it shows your friends will choose drugs over their loyalty to your friendship. Just because you are going into a recovery journey doesn't mean anyone else in your circle is willing to give up their addictions.

Emory doesn't always get it right which is very representative of real people but the book leaves us with the feeling she will get it right in the future. The balance of support and caring, for every success and relapse, but also living her life in the interim whether Joey is in a good place or a bad place. Not putting her own life on hold depending on his situation. It feels like a hypocrisy opening yourself up to love and care and hope and just waiting out the bad days or weeks or months and still going about your life.

I like the concept of a growth mindset that there is no final destination but its about the journey. But that ideal exhausts me. It would be so much more relieving to go a certain time clean and then say "I am recovered" done and finished, instead of accepting you are always in recovery mode, moving forward.

I know these thoughts are very disjointed, but I can't fathom how to more succinctly describe what this story meant to me. This novel is a reminder to have empathy for others because you don't understand them until you've walked a mile in their shoes.

TL:DR

Powerful, heart-wrenching story about addiction and how it challenges everyone involved, friends and family. Likely to make you cry, a lot.