She's Not Home

by Lena George

Overview

In SHE'S NOT HOME, a mother and daughter find that a goodbye may be what reunites them in a poignant story of family ties, shared grief, and the love between mother and child.

Sheryl already lost one daughter by being the fun parent. She's determined to do it right with her other daughter, no matter how much Mariana whines about one chance for a normal night. No misbehavior, no stoner friends, and absolutely no parties. As if missing homecoming amounts to tragedy. Sheryl knows real tragedy-and she's not about to make the same mistake twice.

But all Mariana wants is to escape the shadow of her sister Sheena. She's tired of being seen as the daughter that survived and missing out on experiences she shouldn't have to fight for-like senior homecoming.

So when Mariana discovers the truth about how Sheena died, she runs away. For the first time, Mariana is faced with the reality of making her own choices, while Sheryl is left to contend with losing another daughter.

Told with lyrical prose and unerring honesty, SHE'S NOT HOME is a heartfelt exploration of the power of family to destroy, but also to heal.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798986678504
Publisher:	Harborview Press, LLC
Publication date:	04/25/2023
Pages:	396
Product dimensions:	5.25(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.88(d)

About the Author

Lena George is the fiction pen name of Jaclyn Paul, bestselling author of Order from Chaos: The Everyday Grind of Staying Organized with Adult ADHD. A native of rural Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Lena has lived in her adopted hometown of Baltimore, Maryland since 2008. She shares a home with her husband and son and escapes to the Jersey Shore to write and surf as often as possible.She's Not Home is Lena's first novel.

Editorial Reviews

2022-11-18
A teenager escapes her fault-finding mother in George’s novel, told in alternating perspectives.

In 2004, teen punk Sheena Taylor died in a tragic car accident, making her then-7-year-old sister, Mariana, “the kid who lived.” For a decade, her parents grieve in disparate, unhealthy ways: Mark disappears into his work, preferring the myth that he can abdicate daily parenting responsibility if he’s the sole breadwinner, while Sheryl searches for flaws and assigns blame with vigor. Sheryl even blames Sheena for her own death, telling Mariana that Sheena drove while high in order to pressure Mariana into being the perfect child. As Mariana approaches the age of 18, she starts to lose faith in her ability to deal with her mother’s emotions. Family violence figures crucially in Mariana’s best friend Cat’s story, with a scene at her house foreshadowing a pivotal fight between Mariana and Sheryl. Mark tries to mend his bond with Mariana by revealing the truth about Sheena’s death, which causes the teen to run away. During her first weeks by herself, she reckons with the nature of her sibling’s accident and her mother’s mistreatment. In the sections from Mariana’s point of view, George effectively conveys the feelings of self-blame and depression that come with years of emotional abuse. However, the sections from Sheryl’s perspective lack the same sort of depth, and her voice is often plodding. However, some reflections are beautiful: “A silence hit at times like this. In a movie, the world truly would go silent. The background would lose focus. In real life the silence came from within.” Still, readers may wish that Sheryl offered a memory or insight that revealed why or how her grief took the vitriolic form it did. The narrative also suffers from occasional redundancy and lapses into bland therapy-speak.

An ambitious and lyrical runaway story with some rough edges.

Kirkus Reviews

Ambitious and lyrical. -- Kirkus Reviews

A masterfully written exploration of loss, friendship, and complicated family dynamics -- Book Club Babble

A tragic accident and its attending grief cast a long shadow over Mariana as she tries to enjoy her senior year of high school. She's Not Home is a tender coming-of-age story that deftly explores the intricate teenage dance of playing it safe to please your parents and finding the courage to follow your own dreams.

-- Lisa Morgan, host of The Weekly Reader on WYPR

A grieving mother in search of a do-over, a confused daughter on the brink of adulthood, a detaching father...all pushed to the brink in this emotive novel about love, remorse, anguish, and-finally-forgiveness.

Lena George's She's Not Home examines the toxicity of grief and the struggle to break free of the ties that bind us to the pain.

-- Shawn Nocher, author of A Hand to Hold in Deep Water and The Precious Jules

From the Publisher