book review you'd be home now

Review: You’d Be Home Now by Kathleen Glasgow

You’d Be Home Now Kathleen Glasgow Delacorte Press Published September 28, 2021

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For all of Emory’s life she’s been told who she is. In town she’s the rich one–the great-great-granddaughter of the mill’s founder. At school she’s hot Maddie Ward’s younger sister. And at home, she’s the good one, her stoner older brother Joey’s babysitter. Everything was turned on its head, though, when she and Joey were in the car accident that killed Candy MontClaire. The car accident that revealed just how bad Joey’s drug habit was.

Four months later, Emmy’s junior year is starting, Joey is home from rehab, and the entire town of Mill Haven is still reeling from the accident. Everyone’s telling Emmy who she is, but so much has changed, how can she be the same person? Or was she ever that person at all?

Mill Haven wants everyone to live one story, but Emmy’s beginning to see that people are more than they appear. Her brother, who might not be cured, the popular guy who lives next door, and most of all, many ghostie addicts who haunt the edges of the town. People spend so much time telling her who she is–it might be time to decide for herself.

Inspired by the American classic  Our Town, You’d Be Home Now  is Kathleen Glasgow’s glorious modern story of a town and the secret lives people live there. And the story of a girl, figuring out life in all its pain and beauty and struggle and joy.

This book broke my heart. It’s so raw, so full of emotion. It’s desperate and tender. I love the relationship between Emory and her brother, Joey. Watching her family navigate this incredibly difficult moment made me feel like I couldn’t look away. I needed to know what would happen all the way until the last page.

It definitely captured some of the feel of OUR TOWN. The opioid use gave the story a completely different spin, though. And, oh my gosh. Emory’s mother. I had to pause my reading a couple of times because her control issues were so off the chart. I felt like I could feel Emory’s anxiety and Joey’s frustration and apathy myself when their mother was in the room sometimes. Yikes.

As a reader, I loved this book so much. It challenged me as a writer, too. Like, it’s definitely one of those books that I finish reading and then struggle not to quietly go and delete every project I’ve been working on because I can’t see how I’ll ever write something as compelling as this. (No manuscripts were harmed in the making of this book review.)

If you love stories featuring family drama, or books that explore first love and addiction, or complicated grief, those are all great reasons to pick up YOU’D BE HOME NOW.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages  14 up.

Representation Emory is the daughter of a wealthy white family in a small town. Her brother is recovering from opioid addiction.

Profanity/Crude Language Content Extreme profanity used somewhat frequently.

Romance/Sexual Content Kissing between boy and girl. References to touching and masturbation. A girl allows a boy to take photos of her while she’s naked.

Spiritual Content None.

Violent Content Emory’s brother comes home with a black eye and says another boy at school hit him.

Drug Content Emory drinks alcohol at a party. Other kids smoke pot. Emory’s brother uses heroin and oxycontin (happens off-scene).

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You'd Be Home Now : Book summary and reviews of You'd Be Home Now by Kathleen Glasgow

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You'd Be Home Now

by Kathleen Glasgow

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Published Sep 2021 400 pages Genre: Literary Fiction Publication Information

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About this book

Book summary.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Girl in Pieces comes a breathtaking story about a town, its tragedies, and the quiet beauty of everyday life.

For all of Emory's life she's been told who she is. In town she's the rich one--the great-great-granddaughter of the mill's founder. At school she's hot Maddie Ward's younger sister. And at home, she's the good one, her stoner older brother Joey's babysitter. Everything was turned on its head, though, when she and Joey were in the car accident that killed Candy MontClaire. The car accident that revealed just how bad Joey's drug habit was. Four months later, Emmy's junior year is starting, Joey is home from rehab, and the entire town of Mill Haven is still reeling from the accident. Everyone's telling Emmy who she is, but so much has changed, how can she be the same person? Or was she ever that person at all? Mill Haven wants everyone to live one story, but Emmy's beginning to see that people are more than they appear. Her brother, who might not be "cured," the popular guy who lives next door, and most of all, many "ghostie" addicts who haunt the edges of the town. People spend so much time telling her who she is--it might be time to decide for herself. Inspired by the American classic Our Town , You'd Be Home Now is Kathleen Glasgow's glorious modern story of a town and the secret lives people live there. And the story of a girl, figuring out life in all its pain and beauty and struggle and joy.

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Reader reviews.

"The [characters], especially Emory and Joey, are exceptionally well drawn in both their struggles and their joys...The portrayal of small-town life and its interconnectedness also rings true...Glasgow mentions in her author's note that over 20 million Americans struggle with substance abuse; she includes resources for teens seeking help. Necessary, important, honest, loving, and true." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "The narrative presents a nuanced look at a family trying to keep their loved ones safe and the toll that addiction takes on all of its members…A heartbreaking yet important story." – Student Library Journal (starred review) "...compassionately illustrates the profound power of love...[a] remarkable and engrossing novel of life's balance and imbalance between struggle and joy." - Booklist (starred review) "As beautiful as it is raw… an unflinching tale of addiction." - Amy Beashel, author of The Sky Is Mine "Raw, honest, and over-flowing with feelings…unlike anything I've ever experienced on the page." - Erin Hahn, author of You'd Be Mine and More Than Maybe "In her gripping tale of an addict-adjacent teen and the fragile ecosystem she inhabits, Kathleen Glasgow expands our hearts and invites in a little more humanity." - Val Emmich, New York Times bestselling author of Dear Evan Hansen: The Novel

Author Information

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Kathleen Glasgow Author Biography

Kathleen Glasgow is the author of the New York Times bestselling novel Girl in Pieces , as well as How to Make Friends with the Dark and You'd Be Home Now . She lives and writes in Tucson, Arizona. To learn more about Kathleen and her writing, visit her website, kathleenglasgowbooks.com, or follow @kathglasgow on Twitter and @misskathleenglasgow on Instagram.

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You’d Be Home Now: A Librarian’s Perspective Review

You’d Be Home Now by Kathleen Glasgow is my first book review in nearly a year! Since the Pandemic began almost two years ago, I’ve been in a serious reading rut. I start lots of books and audiobooks. I may even get halfway through, but I almost never finish any of them. I am trying to get back on-track in 2022, so I’m starting here…with a new book review.

Keeping my reading rut in mind, I have to tell you how much I loved Kathleen Glasgow’s You’d Be Home Now . I started reading this as an OverDrive sample. It’s a relatively long sample, and I got so into the story that I actually forgot it was a sample! I checked it out on OverDrive and promptly read 56% of the book in one go!

SUMMARY OF YOU’D BE HOME NOW

Emory is the good girl. She goes along. She doesn’t rock the boat. She gets good grades and stays out of trouble. She’s spent her life in the shadow of her beautiful and smart older sister and her wild, drug-addicted brother. It’s better if Emory does not set off their controlling, workaholic mother, and it’s not like their absent father is ever around long enough to really talk.

One night, Emory is in a terrible car accident after leaving a party. Emory wakes up in the hospital with a shattered knee. Her brother is now in rehab, having overdosed on heroin in the backseat of the car. The driver, her brother’s friend, went through the windshield and is now scarred for life. And Candy MontClaire? Well, she died at the scene.

How can Emory move on from all this? Her knee is badly-injured, so she’s off the dance team. Her friends have abandoned her. Her brother is in rehab. Her brother’s friend–the driver of the car–is in juvie. And Candy MontClaire–sweet, outgoing Candy MontClaire–is gone forever.

THE SHORT VERSION

Considering my recent inability to “get into” any books the way I used to, I’d say this is a bona-fide success! I sucked it down in two sittings.

WHAT I LIKED ABOUT YOU’D BE HOME NOW

It’s realistic. I believed in the characters, that they could be people who actually exist. Emory’s mother is a real piece of work, but I loved the high school characters. There’s an interesting juxtaposition between the self-reflective teens and the adults, most of whom don’t seem to reflect on much at all.

The generational gap feels all-too-real. The story’s adults mostly seem to be trying their best, but they really do not understand their kids. The high school English teacher calls the students entitled because they want to read about characters they can relate to and that look like them. Not just old stories by white men.

Emory’s mother hides and strictly controls all medications–including medication prescribed to Emory for legitimate knee pain–but sees nothing wrong with taking sleeping pills every night before bed. Her dad drinks a “nightcap” every night after work and secretly smokes cigarettes in the car. Several adults see drug-addicted teens and adults as a drain on society rather than people who need help. There’s plenty of judgement to go around, too.

The lack of mental health services. Clearly, only the ultra-rich (Emory’s family) can truly afford drug rehab and mental health services. Emory’s family is the wealthiest in town, yet Emory’s mother mentions multiple times that Joey’s rehab isn’t fully-covered by insurance. Sadly, she uses this as another way to guilt and control her children.

The social media posts and comments. Throughout the book, there is a mystery person writing posts about high school happenings. These range from snarky observations to party announcements to ruminations on teen problems. Every social media post has comments, and readers will know who some of the comments come from. It’s a unique way to show that Emory and others are not at all alone in their loneliness and how sad and misunderstood they are.

Adults are important to teens. I LOVE this one. There are lots of well-meaning but toxic adults in the story. There are also some empathetic adults. But regardless if they are toxic or helpful, the teens want the adults in their lives to be involved. They want to talk to the adults. They want the adults to be available and listen to them. I am the parent of two teenage boys, and this really made me think about my own listening skills with my boys. Am I guilty of working too much? Of being wrapped up in my own world? Of only halfway listening? Probably so.

WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE ABOUT YOU’D BE HOME NOW

I loved the whole book. Authentic characters, a fast-moving plot, engaging writing. What’s not to love?

Okay, I’ve got one thing: I was curious about Candy’s state of mind before they left the party. Candy said she had a headache and wanted to leave the party. Emory describes Candy as “tearstained and with a ripped blouse.” Was she assaulted that night? It sure sounds like it. Sadly, we never find out any details of what happened or who might have done it.

Main characters are white, and it seems the high school is also mostly white kids and teachers. Emory’s family is very wealthy, but there are plenty of people in the same town who struggle financially. A secondary character named Tasha cues as Black or mixed-race.

ARTWORK / ILLUSTRATIONS

No internal illustrations. The cover is a simple green with white pills. Having recently read Shusterman’s Roxy and Beth Macy’s Dopesick , the pills on the cover is what attracted me to the book.

LIBRARIANS WILL WANT TO KNOW

Themes: drugs, depression, mental health, loneliness, socioeconomic inequality, self-absorbed adults

Would adults like this book? YES–I think this is a must-read for parents of teens.

Would I buy this for my high school library? YES

Would I buy this for my middle school library?  Maybe–Themes are mature, but sex scenes are not described and profanity is minimal. I think this is fine for most 8th graders.

MATURE CONTENT

Language : There is some language, including a handful of F-bombs and sh**. It is not gratuitous.

Sexuality: Emory secretly hooks up with her neighbor (a boy her age). There is no sex, but there is touching and naked photos. Nothing is described in detail.

Violence: Descriptions of the car accident are bloody; a couple of physical fights between teens

Drugs/Alcohol: Lots–The whole theme is Joey’s addiction, rehab, and struggles to stay clean after rehab. Emory’s mom uses sleeping pills every night. Another set of parents used to get high in their car and have been missing for years. Emory takes pain pills for her knee, but her mother tightly regulates them (to the point that Emory suffers knee pain more than necessary).

Other: previous suicide of a classmate, parental neglect and abuse

BOOKTALK OR DISPLAY YOU’D BE HOME NOW WITH

MORE REVIEWS OF YA NOVELS FEATURING DRUG ADDICTION

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You'd Be Home By Now by Kathleen Glasgow: YA Book Review

You'd Be Home By Now  by Kathleen Glasgow 

I'm very thankful to the publisher for providing me with this ARC to share my honest thoughts on this book with all of you.

Overview: Emory has always been the good one. The nice one. The easy one. The invisible one. Her older sister, Maddie, is gorgeous and talented. Her older brother, Joey, is struggling with addiction issues, and her parents saddle Emory with the responsibility of being his forever babysitter. No one thinks about Emory- ever. Which leads her to pick up a habit of stealing and collecting small things and hooking up with the high school baseball star next door to feel seen and important. While Joey is stuck on the rollercoaster of his addiction, his family is right there behind him, and as Emory struggles to keep Joey stable, she's also left to contend with her own precariously okay life. Overall: 5+

Characters: 5 Emory is maybe the most universally relatable teen character in YA. She feels unheard and unseen by her parents and the world. A part of her seems to question if she's lovable, capable of being someone's priority. Because her family life is so chaotic with her extraordinarily strict and disapproving mother, a mostly absent father, and a brother that dominates everyone's time, she acts out in small, quiet ways to try to find a release or an outlet. 

Gage Galt across the street knows how to take advantage of that. Shocked that Gage remembered a poem she recited in 8th grade, Emory gets roped into hooking up with Gage in her pool house and letting him take compromising photos of her through the windows. She enjoys the way Gage makes her feel seen, but it also hurts every time Gage rebuffs her requests for them to be together in public, even just as friends. Deep down, she doesn't really want to give him the photos either, but she's overwhelmed by how good it is to feel seen. This is a kind of relationship dynamic that is so common among real teens. Girls are driven by the rush of finally feeling noticed, special, and important, and knowingly or unknowingly a lot of boys take advantage of that. But it's never love when it's about pictures, and from the moment the book started, I just wanted to yell at Emory to run. 

Emory starts the book with really no support system (hence the reason Gage is so impactful). Her mother is cold, and if she received any remotely bad news, she'd probably just yell at Emory anyway. And her dad spends so much time at the hospital, he's oblivious to anything going on in the house. She's lost all her kinda friends from dance team because they don't want to be associated with a girl who was in the car when Candy died in the accident that ruined Emory's knee, got her brother sent to rehab, and finally busted Luther. Over the course of the book, though, Emory finds a new, better group- Luther's younger brother who gets Emory's exact struggle, Jeremy, Emory's ex-childhood best friend, Liza, and Daniel from English class who always wears the scarves. Liza is so incredibly smart and witty, and I immediately both wanted to be Liza and be her best friend. And Daniel offered Emory a look at what real, genuine love is. Each of her new friends is dealing with their own family trauma or past struggles, so there's little judgement and heaps of compassion to go around.

Then there's Joey. Kathleen has written about in-patient treatment before (in her debut book, Girl In Pieces ), but this book takes on a completely different lens. We experience Joey from his sister's point of view. His sister who loves him more than the world and tries her best to empathize with why he keeps going back to drugs, even as they continue to wreck his life and his family. She shows us the parts of Joey we probably wouldn't be able to see from his perspective. How gentle he is and how sweet. How he's a bit soft and impressionable, like clay. And how a long series of extremely powerful medication, starting from an accident when he was young, sent him down this road. There are so many ups and downs in the story, and though there are plenty of hopeful moments, as in all YA books, she doesn't steer away from the truth. 

Plot: 5 I did not want to put this book down. At the beginning, it is much more of a feels book. Emory is drifting through the world, trying to find her footing again after the accident that tore up her knee and her life. We spend most of the first half deeply rooted in Emory's head as she tries to work through her issues. Then, in the second half, there are some major plot moments that switch the book into a more plot focused gear as there are tastes of suspense and nearly heist-like or thriller elements employed. It'll make your heart race and keep the pages turning. Even as Kathleen manages to pack a lot into the plot, all of it makes sense, and nothing feels extra or out of bounds for the story. 

Writing: 5 Kathleen Glasgow writes devastating books. This one, though, takes on a different tone for me. It's the first book of hers I didn't cry reading, and I think that's because the book centers the story in a different place. While Charlie and Tiger's stories are achingly real, fresh, and in the moment, most of Emory's trauma is a secondary branch of something that happened to someone else as well. Many times, she feels like she can't fully own what's happened to her because someone had it worse. This book is more big picture than simply sitting in Emory's world. 

When I finished it, I wanted to give the whole world a giant hug. Everyone is going through so much and working so hard to hide it. The book made me angry that we live in a wealthy country that lets people live on the street and treats addiction like a moral failing when, more often than not, it's sparked by the ridiculously fragrant overuse of pharmisutical drugs in the medical system. We're more than happy to dispense these drugs, but there's no help provided in using them safely, in slowly weaning off of them. Instead we cast systemically created problems into individual moral failings so they're easier to dismiss and shirk responsibility from. The United States is a country that fundamentally lacks and undervalues support in every single sense of the word from mentalities around how we live our lives to social services to parenting styles to the stupid "pull yourself up by your boot straps mantra". That's what I took away from this book. 

Kathleen is an excellent writer and one of my favorites in YA. I really enjoyed this book and its new style and direction while staying close to themes she always writes with so much care and attention. Her books are powerful tools, and that should not be ignored. This was an important book, but it was also a fun read with plenty of light moments, heart racing scenes, and side plots that seem to just exist to make you smile. We get to watch Emory fall down, but there's also the beauty of watching her finally have a community around her to pick her back up for the first time. 

More From This  Author...

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Review: You’d Be Home Now

September 10, 2021

Title: You’d Be Home Now

Author: Kathleen Glasgow

Publisher: Random House Children’s

Publication date: September 28, 2021

Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Bookshop.org | Book Depository | Goodreads | StoryGraph

Emory has spent most of her life being defined by other people in her small town of Mill Haven. After her and her brother Joey were in a car accident that killed one of their classmates, everything changes. Especially when the car accident shows just how bad Joey’s drug habit had gotten.

Once Joey is back from rehab, Emory has to be his support as he tries to get his life back on track. But that’s hard when the rest of the community has different expectations. And all of her friends give up on her due to the accident and her parents are pretty much absent. For most of her life, Emory has tried to be invisible, to blend in. But maybe, it’s time for her to finally stand up for herself–and her family.

Thanks to Random House and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this to review! Kathleen Glasgow always tackles important issues with such grace, and this book is no different. Her writing is so effortless and realistic, and you’ll be sure to be immediately drawn into the story.

This book approaches addiction so realistically, especially when looking at Emory’s relationship with Jack. After Jack goes to rehab, his family believes if he just sticks to certain rules, he’ll be cured of his addiction. He’ll be able to get back to a normal life. However, as Emory learns more about addiction and watches him struggle, she realizes that this isn’t the case. Addiction isn’t something easy to overcome, and those who struggle with it need flexibility.

In addition to Jack’s own struggles with addiction, Glasgow also shows how this is a systemic problem as well. Jack’s story is one that, unfortunately, a lot of people will probably relate to. Prescribed an addictive drug. We see this in an entire community in Mill Haven, and this is happening in small towns all over the country.

While the book maybe didn’t quite need to be as long as it was, I think the events included at the end were important in giving all of the characters closure. We see how parts of a community can come together to support each other, and we get to see high school students taking a stand for themselves. Emory also gains the courage to make her voice heard, and when she does, it’s such a powerful moment in the story.

Glasgow’s books are always sure to take an emotional toll, but they are an important addition to the YA realm. The issues are hard-hitting, important topics, and I hope that these stories will make it into the hands that need them.

4.5/5 stars

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YOU'D BE HOME NOW

by Kathleen Glasgow ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 28, 2021

Necessary, important, honest, loving, and true.

A gut-wrenching look at how addiction affects a family and a town.

Emory Ward, 16, has long been invisible. Everyone in the town of Mill Haven knows her as the rich girl; her workaholic parents see her as their good child. Then Emory and her 17-year-old brother, Joey, are in a car accident in which a girl dies. Joey wasn’t driving, but he had nearly overdosed on heroin. When Joey returns from rehab, his parents make Emory his keeper and try to corral his addictions with a punitive list of rules. Emory rebels in secret, stealing small items and hooking up with hot neighbor Gage, but her drama class and the friends she gradually begins to be honest with help her reach her own truth. Glasgow, who has personal experience with substance abuse, bases this story on the classic play Our Town but with a twist: The characters learn to see and reach out to each other. The cast members, especially Emory and Joey, are exceptionally well drawn in both their struggles and their joys. Joey’s addiction is horrifying and dark, but it doesn’t define who he is. The portrayal of small-town life and its interconnectedness also rings true. Emory’s family is White; there is racial diversity in the supporting cast, and an important adult mentor is gay. Glasgow mentions in her author’s note that over 20 million Americans struggle with substance abuse; she includes resources for teens seeking help.

Pub Date: Sept. 28, 2021

ISBN: 978-0-525-70804-9

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Delacorte

Review Posted Online: June 28, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2021

TEENS & YOUNG ADULT FAMILY | TEENS & YOUNG ADULT SOCIAL THEMES | TEENS & YOUNG ADULT SCHOOL & FRIENDSHIP

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A GOOD GIRL'S GUIDE TO MURDER

From the good girl's guide to murder series , vol. 1.

by Holly Jackson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 4, 2020

A treat for mystery readers who enjoy being kept in suspense.

Everyone believes that Salil Singh killed his girlfriend, Andrea Bell, five years ago—except Pippa Fitz-Amobi.

Pip has known and liked Sal since childhood; he’d supported her when she was being bullied in middle school. For her senior capstone project, Pip researches the disappearance of former Fairview High student Andie, last seen on April 18, 2014, by her younger sister, Becca. The original investigation concluded with most of the evidence pointing to Sal, who was found dead in the woods, apparently by suicide. Andie’s body was never recovered, and Sal was assumed by most to be guilty of abduction and murder. Unable to ignore the gaps in the case, Pip sets out to prove Sal’s innocence, beginning with interviewing his younger brother, Ravi. With his help, Pip digs deeper, unveiling unsavory facts about Andie and the real reason Sal’s friends couldn’t provide him with an alibi. But someone is watching, and Pip may be in more danger than she realizes. Pip’s sleuthing is both impressive and accessible. Online articles about the case and interview transcripts are provided throughout, and Pip’s capstone logs offer insights into her thought processes as new evidence and suspects arise. Jackson’s debut is well-executed and surprises readers with a connective web of interesting characters and motives. Pip and Andie are white, and Sal is of Indian descent.

Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-9848-9636-0

Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019

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INDIVISIBLE

by Daniel Aleman ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 4, 2021

An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away.

A Mexican American boy takes on heavy responsibilities when his family is torn apart.

Mateo’s life is turned upside down the day U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents show up unsuccessfully seeking his Pa at his New York City bodega. The Garcias live in fear until the day both parents are picked up; his Pa is taken to jail and his Ma to a detention center. The adults around Mateo offer support to him and his 7-year-old sister, Sophie, however, he knows he is now responsible for caring for her and the bodega as well as trying to survive junior year—that is, if he wants to fulfill his dream to enter the drama program at the Tisch School of the Arts and become an actor. Mateo’s relationships with his friends Kimmie and Adam (a potential love interest) also suffer repercussions as he keeps his situation a secret. Kimmie is half Korean (her other half is unspecified) and Adam is Italian American; Mateo feels disconnected from them, less American, and with worries they can’t understand. He talks himself out of choosing a safer course of action, a decision that deepens the story. Mateo’s self-awareness and inner monologue at times make him seem older than 16, and, with significant turmoil in the main plot, some side elements feel underdeveloped. Aleman’s narrative joins the ranks of heart-wrenching stories of migrant families who have been separated.

Pub Date: May 4, 2021

ISBN: 978-0-7595-5605-8

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021

TEENS & YOUNG ADULT FICTION | TEENS & YOUNG ADULT FAMILY | TEENS & YOUNG ADULT SOCIAL THEMES

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You'd Be Home Now

62 pages • 2 hours read

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Part 1, Chapter 9

Part 1, Chapters 10-24

Part 2, Chapters 25-33

Part 2, Chapters 34-47

Character Analysis

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Discussion Questions

Summary and Study Guide

You’d Be Home Now (2021), inspired by author Katherine Glasgow’s own experiences with addiction and recovery, tells the story of Emory Ward whose brother is addicted to opioids. After a tragic car accident that leaves one person dead and another in jail, Emory, healing from her wounds, must manage her brother’s recovery while treading the murky waters of high school life. New York Times bestselling author Kathleen Glasgow is known for her young adult fiction that addresses emotional subject matter. Her debut novel, Girl in Pieces (2016) , which discusses self-harm, received the Amelia Bloomer Book List prize. Glasgow is also Glasgow of How to Make Friends with the Dark (2019) and the co-author of The Agathas series (2022-23).

The source material comes from the 2021 Delacorte Press eBook edition.

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Content Warning : The source material contains discussion of substance abuse, overdose, self-harm, and suicide.

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Despite her family’s generational wealth from owning a textile mill, Emory Ward spends most of her sophomore year of high school covering up her brother Joey’s struggle with addiction. That summer, she attends a party and discovers that Joey overdosed on opioids. Candy Sinclair begs Emory for a ride home, but since Emory has been drinking, Joey's friend Luther drives them home. It is raining heavily, and the car skids off the road and flips. Candy doesn’t survive, and the accident leaves Emory with a shattered knee. Luther Leonard, who was carrying drugs to sell, loses an eye and is sent to juvenile detention. Emory awakens in the hospital and learns of Candy’s death and that their parents are sending Joey away to a rehabilitation center in Colorado.

Emory recovers at home but must hide her prescribed pain pills because her mother fears them. Emory also deals with post-traumatic stress from the accident as scenes from the terrible night replay in her mind constantly. Slowly, Emory detaches herself from life, refusing to leave the house. Emory learns that her school friends are distancing themselves because many people at school blame Joey and Emory for Candy’s death.

Emory’s older sister, Maddie, is home from college and cares for her, but once Maddie leaves, Emory feels utterly alone. Emory has been experimenting sexually with their neighbor and school “baseball god,” Gage Galt . Though Gage has made her promise to keep their arrangement secret, Emory loves the way that Gage makes her feel beautiful and sensual. Emory also keeps a velvet box in her closet full of stolen items. Both her time with Gage and shoplifting give Emory an addictive thrill. Emory’s mother, Abigail, is a lawyer, and her father, Neil, is an emergency room doctor. Both hide behind their careers and family money to avoid discussing Joey’s addiction and Emory’s trauma. Opioid addiction is on the rise in town, and a non-profit organization wants to transform the vacant Mill into a rehabilitation facility, but Abigail is considering selling it to build condominiums.

Joey returns from rehab confident and happy, but his parents force him to sign a contract binding him to a strict set of rules which includes getting a job. Soon, Joey’s happiness wanes, and he is back to feeling depressed and unable to measure up to his parents’ high expectations. When the siblings return to school, they face stares and angry words from their classmates. Joey can’t be with any of his old friends because they all use drugs, and Emory just wishes that she could disappear. She eats lunch with the other loner kids including Jeremy, Luther’s brother, and Liza, her former best friend. Eccentric Daniel, who had thyroid cancer, also joins them. Emory also joins the Drama Club and at first dislikes being on stage but soon finds it a place where she can healthily release her emotions. Emory and Gage resume meeting in secret in her pool house, and one night as they stare at each other through the window, Gage asks her to pull up her shirt, and he takes a photo. The two begin swapping nude photos, though Gage promises to keep them to himself.

Joey languishes at home under his parents’ strict rules. He works long hours at a sandwich shop and struggles with schoolwork, and Emory worries that he will relapse. The school Fall Festival approaches, and Emory longs to have a public relationship with Gage. She attends the dance with Daniel, Jeremy, and Liza but gathers her courage and asks Gage to dance in front of his friends. He turns her down, and she runs from the gymnasium humiliated. One of Candy’s friends yells at Joey in front of his crush, Amber, and calls him a “druggie” which sends him to find his friend Noah, who gives him Oxy. Joey overhears Emory telling Daniel what happened, and he attacks Gage, thinking that he harmed Emory. Gage’s arm snaps, and he is rushed to the hospital. Gage’s friend grabs his phone and circulates the nude photos of Emory and Gage around the school.

Emory hides Joey’s relapse from her parents. When she returns to school, she is shamed for the nude photos. Liza comes to Emory’s rescue, and the two repair their broken relationship. Liza uses her social media account, where she goes by the anonymous name “Mis_Educated,” to warn everyone in school to stop shaming Emory for consensual sexual behavior or she will expose their secrets, too. Joey cracks under the pressure of it all and runs away with Luther, who got out of juvenile detention. Devastated over her brother’s relapse and desertion, Emory takes to social media to beg for help in finding him. Knowing her relationship with Gage is over, Emory develops feelings for Daniel, and he helps her to search for Joey. Joey’s friend, Max, finds him at a drug house, and Emory races to rescue her brother. Joey agrees to get help and enter a treatment facility. Abigail petitions the city council to allow her to turn the Mill into a rehabilitation and recovery center for people struggling with addiction.

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By Kathleen Glasgow

Girl in Pieces

Kathleen Glasgow

How to Make Friends with the Dark

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You’d Be Home Now

$ 15.19

Sixteen-year-old Emory “Emmy” Ward is the good daughter in her affluent family, but her life changes after a car accident kills her classmate and pushes her brother, Joey, into drug rehab. Shunned by her peers, Emmy becomes more of an outsider than she already was. With no friends to turn to, she feels invisible.

Kathleen Glasgow expertly depicts the story of a family affected by substance abuse from the perspective of a loved one. This was my second book by Glasgow, and like the first, it affected me so much. Though I am lucky to not have personal experience with addiction, You’d Be Home Now fully engrossed me. I was swept up in the pain that Emmy experienced in the grief following her accident. Her struggle to support Joey’s recovery was raw and emotional.

This book also showed Emmy navigating teenage loneliness and the path to finding her true self, and I loved her journey toward finding the courage to assert herself to her parents and peers. This was a lovely, though difficult, story that everyone should read!

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MSL Book Review

You’d be home now.

Main character Emory, a high school junior has always felt invisible, and so acted out in private ways by stealing small things and engaging in sexual behavior. But everything gets flipped on its head when she’s a passenger in a car accident that kills a classmate. Her overdosed brother (Joey) was also in the car driven by his friend and dealer. Joey is sent to rehab out of state while Emory has to deal with her healing injuries and the loathing of the community for the death of her classmate. Emory withdraws even more into herself as her parents expect her to be Joey’s keeper upon his return and keep him from relapsing. This novel tackles so many important issues, from self-esteem to diversity issues in English class assignments, to how addiction affects whole families and whole communities. While the story is deeply troubling, it’s an honest look at what many teens and many families go through. And since Emory’s family has a lot of money, it’s a good reminder that money truly cannot buy happiness. The author doesn’t shy away from showcasing the truth about addiction, drug use, teen sex, suicide, etc. It’s a stark look at the truth of all too many families. Recommended for all high school collections. Best for ages 14+.

Reviewed by Kara Reiman, Maine State Library

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By Sloane Crosley

• Published Feb. 9, 2021 Updated Feb. 11, 2021

SUPER HOST By Kate Russo

We find ourselves in the first wave of pre-pandemic fiction. Here come the narratives full of indoor scenes, maskless interactions and group coughing fits. Kate Russo’s breezy debut, “Super Host,” is one such novel, written long before the words “super” and “host” had everyday epidemiological associations.

But this story of middle-aged Bennett Driscoll, a washed-up artist forced to rent out his lavish London home (the shower “has two rainfall shower heads and enough room to conduct an orchestra”) to a series of hapless women, situates itself even further back in time. At its best, it’s reminiscent of the early-aughts romps done to great commercial effect by Nick Hornby and Plum Sykes, and even of the tidy plotting executed by the author’s father, Richard Russo.

“Super Host” is set in a fairy tale of London, chock-a-block with meet-cutes and grocery store cashiers who offer to lend their copy of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” to first-time customers. But Bennett’s own life is not quite so dreamy. His thinly sketched ex-wife, Eliza (she loved ultimatums), could no longer “stand still” with him and has run off to America, leaving Bennett to fend for himself and his teenage daughter, a St. Martin’s student who paints large-scale vaginas (not her own, much to our hero’s relief).

[ Read an excerpt from “Super Host.” ]

Bennett also used to paint nudes, which sold for healthy sums, but his career has gone downhill since his fruit period. Now he’s relocated himself to the garden studio, where he struggles for relevance, trying not to smother romantic and professional opportunities with desperation. One would think Russo’s empathy for a straight attractive white man with a newfound obsession with rap and an affinity for existential spirals would not work, but it’s one of the novel’s sweeter spots: “The older he gets, the more impossible it becomes to live in the present.”

The same cannot be said for her female characters. Bennett will be visited by four archetypal women, two American, two British. In addition to being native English-speakers, every woman in this novel is coincidentally affiliated with the arts or has aspirations to be so. The first is Alicia, a Sandra Dee in sensible footwear who attended the London School of Economics and is now employed by Virtual Paddle, an online auction house in New York. She talked her friends into a group trip but they have flaked, citing her unhealthy obsession with the British boyfriend who dumped her five years ago. Alicia has not had sex or smoked a cigarette since. (The world of “Super Host” is anodyne and puritanical enough to make Richard Curtis look like Irvine Welsh.)

Alicia spends her days meandering down memory lane. Upon realizing that none of her friends actually like her, she deletes them all from Facebook (the only social media platform used throughout, a tic that feels demographically askew). When a drunken stranger hits on Alicia outside a pub, she walks away but then returns in a cloud of Pollyanna doom: “All she’d meant to do was make a friend in a pub, have a laugh, maybe a snog.” There’s a good detail a few pages later (after a sexual assault in an alley) when she realizes she’s lost her hair tie and desperately wants it back. This is the last we hear of Alicia.

Next comes Emma, an O.C.D.-afflicted alum of Rhode Island School of Design who is the most finely drawn of the bunch. Literally. While her British husband is off chasing down his drug-addicted brother, Emma traces the floorboards in the bedroom with colored pencils. In the funniest setup in the novel, she writes down what she perceives to be facts (“Fact: Bennett is watching me”) and puts them in a jar while becoming obsessed with the idea that her host has entered the house and moved an avocado.

Bennett’s relationship with Emma, a somewhat inexplicable war of attrition, is also the most realistic. He resentfully watches Emma and her husband “eating granola at the kitchen island, staring at their phones without saying a word to each other.” Furthermore, these pages feature some of Russo’s most vivid writing because Emma is, like Bennett and like Russo herself, a visual artist. The casual use of proper names (the Turner Prize, the White Cube) feels natural, as do the novel’s frequent observations about the business: “There’s very little art in the art world,” Alicia notes. Then there’s Russo’s appreciation for color: “juniper green, ultramarine blue, orange glaze, pink carmine and raw umber.”

During Emma’s section of the novel, Bennett meets Claire, a bartender in her early 40s. Claire has a body for objectification and a two-track mind: She’s an oenophile with dreams of opening a bookstore. This might be tough, since she has apparently never left the bar before and is bowled over (“Blimey”) by the marble in the upscale restaurant where she and Bennett have their first date. “They don’t have a lot in common,” Bennett notes, “except a deep need for companionship.” Still, Claire is good for him. Not only does she get Bennett jogging and painting nudes again, she challenges him. “Don’t turn this around on me,” she says during a fight, which causes low-bar Bennett to conclude: “Damn, she must be smart.”

Finally, there’s Kirstie, who at first reminds Bennett of his ex-wife because she drives the same car. (For someone who used to paint them, Bennett’s only frame of reference for women seems to be the ones in his immediate orbit.) Kirstie is a divorcée with zebra-print luggage who thinks “most women don’t know the difference between a compliment and an insult anymore.” She starts weeping upon arrival. She demands Bennett go house-hunting and have dinner with her, becoming infuriated with him for not “asking the correct questions,” feeling jealous that Bennett surely gives his girlfriend and daughter “more attention than he’s giving her right now.” When she was younger, Kirstie wanted to design her own hotel but got waylaid by marrying a television actor who would later try to choke her on their balcony. Bennett nearly leaves Claire for her.

One of the things that make Emma the most digestible of the four is that Russo’s portrayal of her is more logically imitative of her personality. Multiple paragraphs about an avocado align with an O.C.D. character and are less tiresome than, say, desultory Alicia, name-checking the streets of London. Another is that Emma’s trauma comes off as less clumsy within a lighthearted novel, versus attempted rape and even attempted murder. Even before their stories of abuse are unfurled, these women are apt to label their own thoughts “selfish” or “sexist,” flip assignations because the tone of the narrative doesn’t allow for the parsing of such issues. Sometimes this passes without incident, sometimes it’s a problem. Are we to think Kirstie’s children are vile when they suggest she “must have done something ” to make her husband angry? (“Why do you always egg him on?”) Or, like Kirstie, are we meant to have no reaction, moving onto the next chapter with a kind of Hallmark-y determinism?

The guest’s story lines are unresolved, which would have been a more successful comment on the nature of transient interactions if Russo hadn’t ceded half the novel to these women’s perspectives and detailed back stories. Still, to write with such care about them is no easy feat. Many authors, debut and seasoned alike, must resist the urge to make all their characters sound too identical, too clever by half, too capable of writing a novel. Here, even when the characters feel paint-by-numbers, the lasting impression is of them as separate people.

The downside of populating a story this way is that “Super Host” does not get everything it wants. It does not get to be a laugh-out-loud book or a real exploration of loneliness. But it is brimming with Russo’s pure affection for her creation. Even Bennett, whose major malfunction is indecision, is as proactive as he can be without starting from scratch. He’s an involved father, he’s submitting a painting to the Royal Academy Summer Show, he’s dutifully tending to his libido. Despite the cracks in the walls, “Super Host” is a pleasant stay, a reminder that you never know what goes on behind closed doors, even when they’re your own.

Sloane Crosley is the author, most recently, of the essay collection “Look Alive Out There.”

SUPER HOST By Kate Russo 368 pp. G.P. Putnam’s Sons. $27.

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You'd Be Home Now Kindle Edition

• Print length 389 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Delacorte Press
• Publication date September 28, 2021
• Page Flip Enabled
• Word Wise Not Enabled
• Enhanced typesetting Enabled
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• ISBN-13 978-0525708049
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Editorial Reviews

From school library journal, about the author, excerpt. © reprinted by permission. all rights reserved..

My sister, Maddie, is crying, her pretty face damp and frightened. One of my legs is heavier than the other and I don’t understand and I want to ask her why, but I can’t form words, because there’s an ocean inside me, warm and sweet, and I’m bobbing along the waves, just like the ones that carried me and Joey all those years ago in San Diego, when everything was perfect or as close to it as we could get. That was a nice time, when I was twelve and Joey was thirteen, letting the waves carry us, Maddie stretched out on the beach in her purple bikini and floppy-brimmed hat. Far away from Mill Haven, we were in a different world, where no one knew who we were.

I try to ask Maddie where Joey is, but she can’t understand me. She thinks I’m saying something else, because she leans forward and says, “Do you need more? Do you need me to press the button?”

And her finger presses a button on the side of the bed and the largest wave I’ve ever known billows over me, like the parachute game we played in the gymnasium in kindergarten, all of us laughing as the fabric gently overtook us and blocked out the world.

My mother’s voice is trembling. “This is not normal. This is not something that happens to people like us.”

My father sounds weary. He has been weary for years now. Joey makes people weary. 

He says, “There is no normal, Abigail. Nothing has ever been normal. Why can’t you see that? He has a problem.” 

My finger stretches out for the button to make the waves come again. My parents make me tired, years and years of fighting about Joey. 

My mother’s hand touches my head. Like a kitten, I respond, leaning into it. I can’t remember the last time she touched me, stroked my hair. Everything has always been about Joey. 

“There was heroin in his system, Abigail. How did we miss that?” 

The word floats in the air before me, something eerie and frightening. 

There was vomit spattered on his hoodie at the party. When we found him in the bedroom. He was woozy and floppy and strange and made no sense and I thought . . . 

I thought he was just drunk. Stoned, maybe. 

“I will fix this,” she says to my father. “He’ll go to rehab, he’ll get better, he’ll come home.”

She says rehab in a clipped way, like it hurts to have the word in her mouth. 

“That’s not a magic wand you can wave and make it all go away, Abigail. He could have died. Emory could have died. A girl did die.” 

The ocean inside me, the one that was warm and wavy, freezes. 

“What did you say?” I whisper. My voice feels thick. Can they understand me? I speak louder. “What did you just say?” 

“Emory,” my father says. “Oh, Emory.” 

My mother’s eyes are wet blue pools. She curls her fingers in my hair. 

“You’re alive,” she tells me. “I’m so grateful you’re alive.” 

Her face is blurry from the waves carrying me. I’m struggling inside them, struggling to understand.

“But she just had a headache,” I say. “Candy just had a headache. She can’t be dead.” 

My father frowns. “You aren’t making any sense, Emmy.” 

She had a headache. That’s why she was in the car. She had a headache at the party, and she wanted a ride home and it can’t be right that a person has a headache and gets in a car and dies and everyone else lives. It can’t be right. 

“Joey,” I say, crying now, the tears warm and salty on my face. “I want Joey. Please, get me Joey.”

When I open my eyes, he’s there. 

I’ve seen my brother cry only once before, the afternoon he and Luther Leonard decided to dive from the roof of our house into the pool. Luther made it; Joey didn’t, and the sound of his sobs as he writhed on the brick patio echoed in my head for days.

But his crying is quieter now.

“I’m so sorry,” he says. His voice is croaky, and he looks sick, pale and shaky. There are stitches above his left eye. His right arm is in a sling. 

“I thought you were drunk,” I say. “I thought you were just drunk.” 

Joey’s dark eyes search my face. 

“I messed up. I messed up so bad, Emmy.” 

Girls swoon over those dark eyes. Or they did. Before he became trouble.

Joey Ward used to be cool, a girl said in the bathroom at Heywood High last year. She didn’t know I was in the stall. Sometimes I stayed in there longer than I needed to, just for some peace. It’s hard all the time. Pretending. 

Not anymore, another girl answered. Just another druggie loser.

 I cried in the stall, because I knew Joey was more than that. Joey was the one who taught me to ride a bike, because our parents worked all the time. Joey was the one who let me read aloud to him for hours in a bedsheet fort in my father’s den, long after he probably should have been ignoring me in favor of his friends, like most older siblings do. He taught me how to make scrambled eggs and let me stay with him in his attic bedroom while he drew. 

Until he didn’t. Until the day I knocked and he told me to go away. 

He stands up, wiping his face with his good hand. His beautiful dark hair is in tangles, hanging over his eyes. 

“I have to go,” he says. “Mom’s waiting.” 

Rehab. It floats back to me from when Mom said it. Was that yesterday? Or this morning? It’s hard to tell. I don’t know how long I’ve been here. Things are bleeding together. 

“Joey, why did you do . . . it?” 

I wish I could get out of this bed. I wish my leg wasn’t hanging from some damn pulley in the air and that my body wasn’t heavy with the ocean of drugs inside me. 

At the door to my hospital room, Joey turns back, but he doesn’t look at me. He looks at the floor. 

“I love you, Emmy, but you have no idea what it’s like to be me.” 

And then he’s gone. 

I’m in the downstairs bedroom off the kitchen that my mother remodeled for Nana, hoping she’d come live with us, but Nana is stubborn and says she wants to stay in her own house until the day she dies. 

The walls are painted pale gray. The sheets and blankets are white and crisp and perfect and I’m imagining how the sweat dripping off my forehead is going to stain the pillowcases. My mother doesn’t like messes.

At my feet, my dog Fuzzy nuzzles closer to my good leg, whines softly. I rub her with my toe. Her fur is coarse; no one’s been brushing her. Westies need brushing. 

My bad leg is in a blue brace, propped on more white pillows. My knee is throbbing, sparks of white heat that make me breathe hard. Make me sweat. 

I can hear them in the kitchen, my sister Maddie and my mother, arguing. 

“Mom, she’s in pain,” Maddie’s saying. “Just let her have a pill.” 

“She can have ibuprofen. She was on so much medication in the hospital. I don’t want her . . .” 

My mom’s voice trails off. 

“Mom,” Maddie says forcefully. “She fractured her kneecap. And she’s not Joey.” 

“That’s right,” my mother answers, in a suddenly hard voice that makes me shiver. “And I want it to stay that way.”

Maddie sleeps next to me in the gray room, her eyelids growing heavy as she clicks the television remote from one show to another: Keeping Up with the Kardashians, My Lottery Dream Home, Friends. When the remote finally slips from her fingers, I turn the television off and just listen, Fuzzy tucked next to me, soft and sleeping. 

Maddie snuck me a pill after my mother went to bed, fed me crackers and juice, and I’m not sweating anymore. 

I’m listening to the quiet of the house. 

Some things haven’t changed since I came home. My dad still gets back late from his shifts at the hospital, peeking into the room at us to say hello and ask about my knee before he eats whatever Goldie has left for him in the refrigerator before going to the den and settling down with his drink to watch his own shows. He’ll fall asleep in the recliner, glasses slipping down his nose, while my mother is asleep upstairs. That’s the way they’ve been for what seems like years now, my mother up, my father down. I thought that might change, with everything that’s happened. That they’d get closer, somehow, after the accident.

 I thought they might stay home with me, too, at least for the first few days, but they didn’t. They went right back to work. Maybe because Maddie is here now and can take care of me. And Goldie, too, if it’s one of her days with us. 

Sometimes I feel like I don’t exist in this house because I’m not beautiful and loud, like Maddie, or a problem, like Joey. I’m just me. The good one. 

The one thing that’s changed is the sound of our house. 

It’s quiet. 

It was never quiet with Joey, especially last year, when things got bad. So much yelling and fighting with my mom about his grades. His attitude. Slammed doors. Joey burying himself deep into his hoodie when my dad would try to talk to him. I did whatever I could to make things better. Woke him up for school, even if I had to pour cold water on his face to do it. Did his homework, just enough to get his grades up, make it look like he was trying, but not enough to raise suspicion. I just wanted the noise to stop. 

Next to me, Maddie rolls over, her knee knocking into mine. Little flares heat my knee, but not too much, because of the pill. I bite back a little gasp. Maybe I need another one? But I don’t want to wake her up. I don’t want any more fights about taking pills. I don’t want noise anymore. 

Because this quiet? Even though I love Joey, he’s my brother, how could I not love him?--this quiet is peaceful. 

It’s finally peaceful now that my wild and troubled brother is gone.

And I feel guilty about loving this peace.

“It’s a mess up there,” Maddie says. “But I think I got most of it cleaned up.” She drops a milk crate on the living room floor and flops down on the couch next to me. Her hair is in a ponytail and her neck gleams with sweat. The stairs to the attic are steep. 

Even sweaty and with no makeup, my sister is beautiful. I shouldn’t feel jealous, but I do. 

“Mom really tore Joey’s room apart. I don’t know if I told you. Maybe you don’t remember. You were so out of it in the hospital. But we came back here a couple of days after the accident to shower and change clothes and went up there. You know? To see what he’d been hiding, and she just . . . kind of lost it.” 

She leans forward and shuffles through the milk crate. “I don’t think she found much. Maybe a bong and some weed. But look what I found.” 

She hands me a stack of papers. Joey’s art. Gold-winged dragons with orange fire spilling from their jaws. Hulking creatures with sharp talons and red eyes. A whole world he created in the attic when our parents let him move up there when he was thirteen. He could sit for hours at his drafting table, immersed. My mother turned his old bedroom into her exercise space.

“I don’t think he draws anymore,” I tell her. “Maybe he will now. When he comes back. When he’s better.”

Maddie looks at me carefully. “Emmy, I’m not sure there’s going to be a ‘better.’ He took heroin. That’s some serious stuff. That’s not something you can just . . . brush off. I mean, I had no idea. Did you?” 

I arrange the papers into a neat pile on my lap, avoiding her eyes. “I thought . . . I don’t know. It was hard. I was just trying to take care of him. I thought it was just . . . being stoned and stuff. You don’t know what it was like, last year. You were gone.” 

I start to cry, tears spilling onto my T-shirt. I haven’t taken a shower in days and I’m wearing the same clothes I came home from the hospital in, the crutches are giving me sores under my arms, and I feel awful and rank sitting next to my beautiful sister with her hair up in a messily perfect ponytail. 

And I feel guilty about Joey, like part of this is my fault, for keeping his secrets for so long.

 And then there’s Candy. 

It’s too much, everything bubbling inside me at once. 

“Oh, Emmy,” Maddie says, wrapping her arms around me. “It’s okay. Don’t cry. It’s not your fault. I swear, it’s not your fault.” 

But somewhere, deep down, I think it is. 

Because if I hadn’t tried to hide Joey’s secrets, maybe Candy MontClair wouldn’t have died. 

When I limp into the kitchen, my mother flips over the newspaper she was reading and sets her coffee cup on it. 

“Well, hello,” she says brightly, turning to the stove. She slides scrambled eggs onto a plate for me. “It’s a big day. You need to eat. You haven’t been eating much. I’m getting a bit worried.” 

She sniffs the air delicately. “Did you shower?” She pulls her hair back and weaves it into a stylish, casual bun. She’s wearing a lovely cream blouse, dark gray jacket, pants that flare elegantly over her crisp black shoes. Her work clothes. 

“You’re going to work?” I ask, my heart sinking. I thought she’d want to come with me when I finally got my leg brace off. It’s been five weeks. I don’t know why I got my hopes up. 

She frowns. “Of course. I can’t miss today. We’ve got a deposition. Maddie’s here. She’ll take you to your appointment.” 

I take a few bites of egg and then push the rest around on the plate while she busies herself with wallet, keys, purse. My mother is a lawyer and my dad is a doctor in the ER, which means they’re both always pretty much working, but I thought at least one of them would want to be there the day I got my leg brace off.

Product details

• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B08VFSBVKR
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Delacorte Press (September 28, 2021)
• Publication date ‏ : ‎ September 28, 2021
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• File size ‏ : ‎ 9264 KB
• Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
• Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
• Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 389 pages
• #19 in Teen & Young Adult Fiction about Death
• #27 in Teen & Young Adult Emotions & Feelings Fiction eBooks
• #32 in Teen & Young Adult Fiction about Friendship

About the author

Kathleen glasgow.

Kathleen Glasgow is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of GIRL IN PIECES, YOU'D BE HOME NOW, HOW TO MAKE FRIENDS WITH THE DARK, and the Agathas mystery series (with Liz Lawson): THE AGATHAS and THE NIGHT IN QUESTION. Visit her at www.kathleenglasgowbooks.com, follow her on TikTok @kathleenglasgow, on Twitter @kathglasgow, or on Instagram @misskathleenglasgow. She lives in Arizona.

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Picture This

George takei 'lost freedom' some 80 years ago – now he's written that story for kids.

Samantha Balaban

George Takei was just 4 years old when when President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066:

"I hereby authorize and direct the Secretary of War, and the Military Commanders... to prescribe military areas in such places and of such extent as he or the appropriate Military Commander may determine, from which any or all persons may be excluded..."

It was Feb. 19, 1942. Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor two months earlier; For looking like the enemy, Japanese and Japanese American people in the U.S. were now considered "enemy combatants" and the executive order authorized the government to forcibly remove approximately 125,000 people from their homes and relocate them to prison camps around the country.

Book Reviews

George takei recalls time in an american internment camp in 'they called us enemy'.

Star Trek actor George Takei has written about this time in his life before — once in an autobiography, then in a graphic memoir, and now in his new children's book, My Lost Freedom.

It's about the years he and his mom, dad, brother and baby sister spent in a string of prison camps: swampy Camp Rohwer in Arkansas, desolate Tule Lake in northern California. But first, they were taken from their home, driven to the Santa Anita racetrack and forced to live in horse stalls while the camps were being built.

"The horse stalls were pungent," Takei remembers, "overwhelming with the stench of horse manure. The air was full of flies, buzzing. My mother, I remember, kept mumbling 'So humiliating. So humiliating.'"

He says, "Michelle's drawing really captured the degradation our family was reduced to."

Michelle is Michelle Lee, the illustrator — and researcher — for the book. Lee relied heavily on Takei's text and his excellent memory, but it was the research that both agree really brought the art to life.

"I'm telling it from the perspective of a senior citizen," Takei, 87, laughs. "I really had to wring my brains to try to remember some of the details."

So Takei took Lee to the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, where he is a member of the board. They had lunch in Little Tokyo, got to know each other, met with the educational director, and looked at the exhibits. Then Lee started digging into the archives.

Movie Interviews

From 'star trek' to lgbt spokesman, what it takes 'to be takei'.

"I looked for primary sources that showed what life was like because I feel like that humanizes it a lot more," Lee explains. She found some color photographs taken by Bill Manbo, who had smuggled his camera into the internment camp at Heart Mountain in Wyoming. "While I was painting the book, I tried as much to depict George and his family just going about their lives under these really difficult circumstances."

Takei says he was impressed with how Lee managed to capture his parents: his father, the reluctant leader and his mother, a fashion icon in her hats and furs. "This has been the first time that I've had to depict real people," Lee adds.

To get a feel for 1940s fashion, Lee says she looked at old Sears catalogues. "What are people wearing? All the men are wearing suits. What kind of colors were clothes back then."

But a lot of information has also been lost — Lee wasn't able to see, for example, where Takei and his family lived in Arkansas because the barracks at Camp Rohwer have been torn down — there's a museum there now. "I didn't actually come across too many photos of the interior of the barracks," says Lee. "The ones I did come across were very staged."

She did, however, find the original floor plans for the barracks at Jerome Camp, also in Arkansas. "I actually printed the floorplan out and then built up a little model just to see what the space was actually like," Lee says. "I think it just emphasized how small of a space this is that whole families were crammed into."

One illustration in the book shows the work that Takei's mother put in to make that barrack — no more than tar paper and boards stuck together — a home.

"She gathered rags and tore them up into strips and braided them into rugs so that we would be stepping on something warm," Takei remembers. She found army surplus fabrics and sewed curtains for the windows. She took plant branches that had fallen off the nearby trees and made decorative sculptures. She asked a friendly neighbor to build a table and chairs.

"You drew the home that my mother made out of that raw space, Takei tells Lee. "That was wonderful."

Michelle Lee painted the art for My Lost Freedom using watercolor, gouache and colored pencils. Most of the illustrations have a very warm palette, but ever-present are the barbed wire fences and the guard towers. "There's a lot of fencing and bars," Lee explains. "That was kind of the motif that I was using throughout the book... A lot of vertical and horizontal patterns to kind of emphasize just how overbearing it was."

Takei says one of his favorite drawings in the book is a scene of him and his brother, Henry, playing by a culvert.

Asian American And Pacific Islander Heritage Month 2022

George takei got reparations. he says they 'strengthen the integrity of america'.

"Camp Rohwer was a strange and magical place," Takei writes. "We'd never seen trees rising out of murky waters or such colorful butterflies. Our block was surrounded by a drainage ditch, home to tiny, wiggly black fishies. I scooped them up into a jar.

One morning they had funny bumps. Then they lost their tails and their legs popped out. They turned into frogs!"

"They're just two children among many children who were imprisoned at these camps," says Lee, "and to them, perhaps, aspects of being there were just fun." The illustration depicts both childlike wonder and — still, always — a sense of foreboding. Butterflies fly around a barbed wire fence. A bright sun shines on large, dark swamp trees. Kids play in the shadow of a guard tower.

"There's so much that you tell in that one picture," says Takei. "That's the art."

"So many of your memories are of how perceptive you are to things that are going on around you," adds Lee, "but also still approaching things from a child's perspective."

Even though the events in My Lost Freedom took place more than 80 years ago, illustrator Michelle Lee and author George Takei say the story is still very relevant today.

"These themes of displacement and uprooting of communities from one place to another — these are things that are constantly happening," says Lee. Because of war and because of political decisions ... those themes aren't uncommon. They're universal."

Takei agrees. "People need to know the lessons and learn that lesson and apply it to hard times today. And we hope that a lot of people get the book and read it to their children or read it to other children and act on it."

He's done his job, he says, now the readers have their job.

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