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There are currently 46 member reviews
for Home Sweet Home
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Leah M. (Marshalltown, IA)
Historically Relevant to Today
Home Sweet Home starts out with a face paced beginning with a gruesome murder. Then it takes the reader back in time to fill in the missing pieces.I thought the strong points of the book were in the historical research with the time period during McCarthyism. We learn about a time in history ringing true again today with our political polarization and the villainization of people.
The character development was excellent for this time period especially with lead characters Cal and Betsy. They are a couple that while wanting more in life that just acquiring more things decide to leave NYC for the prairie of South Dakota to make a difference. their dreams have many ups and downs.
The plot is strong for the first half of the book but gets somewhat lost in the ending. The parts about developing LaSalle seemed out of place.
Overall, I enjoyed the book and was rooting for the characters to overcome adversity.
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Dona H. (Muskegon, MI)
Home Sweet Home
At its core, this is an excellent story of a family's move from New York to rural South Dakota in the early 1950s. The author's skillful character development and her description of the hardships they endured made an interesting story. The political events seemed all too real today. However, I felt the 1985 portions were tacked on in an effort to add suspense, and they actually weakened the plot.
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Susie J. (Fort Wayne,, IN)
Good but Not Great!
This is an interesting book in so many ways - the plot line shifts from the past (1950) to present day and back again from chapter to chapter, characters are many and varied, topics such as war, politics, history, geography (South Dakota), nature, and farming are all woven into the work along with an aura of mystery and unrest. There is so much here that makes me think this should be a great read - and yet I failed to find it that way. From the beginning, there is a sense of mystery in this novel, and usually all of the components that resolve that mystery and bring the plot to a climax are present at the beginning of a work - whether the reader recognizes them or not. In this novel, however, something seems to be missing. The characters who appear to be the focus of this work, Cal and Betsy Kusek, are missing in action far too early, and those with whom we are left, their son and daughter, seem to lack development from the book's very beginning. Finally, the author introduces a character very late in this work, one who is not connected in any way to those she has presented throughout, and this reader felt as if suddenly a new novel had begun. I was entertained by this book and I learned some interesting things from the historical and geographical fiction, but I found that I was continuing to read more to discover how the author was going to get this all put together than for the genuine pleasure or cleverness of the work. I thought this book contained many good aspects, but these are not organized in such a way as to make it a great read for me.
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Jeff M. (Somerset, NJ)
Home Sweet Home
"Home Sweet Home" begins as if it is going to be a murder mystery as the story moves back and forth from the 1950s to a hospital in 1985. In the end, the mystery as to who brutally attacked Jo's brother and his family. is just a resulting outcome of the entire saga of the Kusek's family move from New York City to the open plains of South Dakota. The effect on people and industries (e.g., Hollywood) of the communism "Red Scare" in the early 1950's, led by Sen Joseph McCarthy, is generally well known. What the book dramatically brings to life is the impact of the "Red Scare" in a place like rural South Dakota, where liberal democrats and others were viewed suspiciously by their neighbors and it took years for trust in newcomers to be built up (and then broken in a moment's notice). April Smith's book describes the Kusek's family move and how they tried to fit in and grow over a 35 year period. The book is filled with vivid descriptions (e.g., sudden storms and wind that come out of nowhere) and good character development. It made for an interesting read, although sometimes the story moved a bit slow in spots for me.
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Mary Ann B. (Louisville, KY)
Home Sweet Home
Putting down roots, and creating a home aren't always easy to do. April Smith shows that in Home Sweet Home. The Kusek family moves from New York City to Rapid City, South Dakota in the fifties. They create a comfortable life through hard work and perseverance. However, a youthful indiscretion follows the family, and shines a light on how communities can be close minded, mean-spirited, and hateful to their own.
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Grace W. (Corona del Mar, CA)
Home Bittersweet
Home Sweet Home by April Smith is well-written. Yet, the first 125 pages of detailed vignettes about the various characters made me wonder if the multitude of story threads would come together. Satisfactorily, the threads did became woven. The book captures the bleak scenery of the South Dakota prairie and the paranoia formed in the McCarthy years of communist smear campaigns. The story portrays well the tension between the urban, more Eastern-elite and the rural Midwest farm communities.
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Virginia M. (San Antonio, TX)
A good historical novel
The Library of Congress data for this book categorizes it as "family life, romance, western" and the preface to the book ends with two questions that hint that maybe it was written as a "who dun it" book. I think both of these things are misleading to potential readers. I think that those people who pick this book based upon a hope it will primarily be a mystery with a touch of romance will likely be somewhat disappointed while those who start reading it as historical novel based upon a true story will find it quite satisfying; but that is just my opinion. However, I received this free book under the First Impressions program of Book Browse in exchange for my honest opinion so I want to comply with that commitment.
The book is decidedly full of history about the McCarthy trial era in our nation's history and it is based upon an actual event where a man and his family are viciously accused of being dirty "Commies". His reputation is ruined and later his family is murdered by a man who was so influenced by the call to rid this country of people with Marxist leanings that he committed murder. Home Sweet Home pretty much used the specific details of that true story as the basis for its plot – changing only the family's name to Kusek and the location to South Dakota.
My favorite type of novel is historical fiction and I applied for one of the free books for that reason. I graduated from college in 1956 so I lived during the McCarthy era but I thoroughly enjoyed how the book helped me to remember the paranoia that existed in our country at that time. I also found myself comparing how similar the incidents in the book were to the 2016 election where both sides used lies and smear campaigns in an effort to sway the public.
Like so many books I have recently read, the book switches back and forth from the 1980s to the 1950s but I found it easy to follow – the publisher even printed the 1980s episodes in a different font style to help readers keep it straight.
Although my political leanings are definitely on the other side of the aisle from Mr Kusek, I identified with their concerns, longings to find a peaceful life style, and love for each other. The drama of the family life added to the historical aspect of the book.
I definitely would recommend the book for people who enjoy dramatic historical fiction.
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