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18th out of 34 books
—
11 voters
Going Home
by
Harriet Evans (Goodreads Author)
They say love feels like going home . . .
but what if your home is no longer there?
Leaving her tiny flat in London -- and a whole host of headaches behind -- Lizzy Walter is making the familiar journey back home to spend Christmas with her chaotic but big-hear ted family. In an ever-changing world, her parents' country home, Keeper House, is the one constant. But behind t...more
Leaving her tiny flat in London -- and a whole host of headaches behind -- Lizzy Walter is making the familiar journey back home to spend Christmas with her chaotic but big-hear ted family. In an ever-changing world, her parents' country home, Keeper House, is the one constant. But behind t...more
Paperback, 448 pages
Published
October 10th 2006
by Downtown Press
(first published January 1st 2005)
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I really enjoyed this.
Unusually for a chick lit, it was written in first person narrative so you kind of share her confusion and misreading of various situations which gives the reader quite a bit to do.
Having said that I did find myself getting quite irritated with the main character Lizzy at times - perhaps I'm just nosy, but Lizzy just jumps to conclusions without asking a simple question now and again. Particularly how could you go all the way home to see your parents, wondering why they ar...more
Unusually for a chick lit, it was written in first person narrative so you kind of share her confusion and misreading of various situations which gives the reader quite a bit to do.
Having said that I did find myself getting quite irritated with the main character Lizzy at times - perhaps I'm just nosy, but Lizzy just jumps to conclusions without asking a simple question now and again. Particularly how could you go all the way home to see your parents, wondering why they ar...more
Goodreads really needs to have half stars because 2 stars is saying "I really didn't enjoy it" and three stars would say "The book was OK" ... well it was neither.
I struggled to read this book and at times when I was starting to get into the book ... bitter disappointment ... and struggle time hit again ...
The storyline was good but I feel it was poorly executed ... at times the author babbled on about meaningless topics which really didn't need to be added.
Lizzy?!?!?! WHat an annoying character...more
I struggled to read this book and at times when I was starting to get into the book ... bitter disappointment ... and struggle time hit again ...
The storyline was good but I feel it was poorly executed ... at times the author babbled on about meaningless topics which really didn't need to be added.
Lizzy?!?!?! WHat an annoying character...more
One of the reasons why Harriet Evans is my new go-to author for emotionally satisfying, well-written commercial fiction: "I am passionate about commercial fiction, especially commercial women’s fiction, which seems to me to come in for an extraordinary amount of bile and patronising comment, in contrast to the same kind of books by men, which get reviewed, discussed, accepted into the canon with far greater ease. Books about young women’s lives, their jobs, romances, nights out, what they like d...more
As usual, I love Brit lit due to the mix of humor and hilarious swear words that we don't use in American English. Evans is a more recent discovery and I really enjoyed Going Home. For those that have less than Norman Rockwell families, this is an apropo read as it opens with the annual trek home for Christmas by three sibs/ cousins. The opening night of drinking and introduction of family oddballs should strike a chord with many.
As Lizzy goes into denial about the loss of her ancestral home, it...more
As Lizzy goes into denial about the loss of her ancestral home, it...more
The plot of Going Home, it's idea is good, it's just poorly executed. I really struggled with getting into this book for a number of reasons. The main character has a best friend Georgy that doesn't appear actually in the book until the end, while thinking about the job in LA there's no mention of getting a visa [tiny but important detail] and I found Lizzy to be not be very likeable. She assumes without any true evidence, takes things on face value and judges everything by the words of others....more
Ehh, it was okay. It took me a while to get into the book, and when I felt like I was getting to the heart of the story, I would come across a few pages that were just okay, starting the cycle over again.
It's very British humor, which I'm sure means I've missed a bit. The characters, while fleshed out, weren't rounded out, if that makes sense. I didn't feel particularly drawn to any one of them. I wasn't rooting for any one of them, either.
It had some language, especially toward the latter hal...more
It's very British humor, which I'm sure means I've missed a bit. The characters, while fleshed out, weren't rounded out, if that makes sense. I didn't feel particularly drawn to any one of them. I wasn't rooting for any one of them, either.
It had some language, especially toward the latter hal...more
This was sent along with a ring as a random act of bookcrossing kindness... Kalise couldn't be bothered to register it there so I did. I had never read anything by this author and so was glad to discover her, but I won't be desperately trying to find others. Nor would I shy away from reading something else. On the whole it was an interesting read and a bit of a reflexion on the difference between a house and a home. I was a bit irritated that the heroine didn't immediately leap on the solution w...more
Harriet Evans writes great novels with a lot of characters and story going on. This novel was no exception. Let me cut to the chase though in saying that once things switched from a lovely English countryside Christmas to the toils of going back to work and her family's drama, it became a novel filled with tension. I wanted to enjoy my reading and relax, but found myself tense over the main character, Lizzy's, stubborn streak. Things that needed to be talked about with her ex-"love of her life"...more
My first of Harriet's books, while I can't say it was a downer, it was NOT one of the most exciting books I have read. Mainly because the story promised lots of comedy and romance, both of which I did not find! There was no fiery chemistry between hero and heroine or laugh-out-loud moments to rave about. It was a mediocre read with nothing special to boast about. Those of you who like to read more about family bonding through secondary characters will probably enjoy it more. I wished there were...more
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This was a very satisfying read. The characters were well described and likeable. Ms Evans can be really funny at times but she also dealt with more serious themes like facing the loss of your childhood home. She throws in a few surpises along the way which kept the interest going. This is one book which doesn't lose any pace in the middle (which seems to happen too often in my experience). Very readable and enjoyable.
The british humor in this book threw me off. There were parts I couldn't really understand, which is aggravating when you are trying to indulge in a book. For example, "My bingo line is...it'll be something to do with the path of the way to the marquee. Will they put tarpaulin down if it rains? So people's shoes don't get muddy." Some parts were just confusing and not interesting.
Okay, but a bit slow...to get going and them the end was really obvious but took ages to get there! Loved "Hopeless Romantic" by the same author, but found her last book very similar to this.
Not sure about being sold as a romantic comedy - I failed to find anything funny in most of the situations - couldn't understand why the Lizzy's best friend Georgy was absent for most of the book.
Not sure about being sold as a romantic comedy - I failed to find anything funny in most of the situations - couldn't understand why the Lizzy's best friend Georgy was absent for most of the book.
Ich habe das Buch auf deutsch gelesen. Hauptsächlich geht es um das Elternhaus von Lizzy Walters, das verkauft werden muß. Abgesehen davon trennt sich Lizzy von ihrem langjährigen Freund. Ich fand die Charaktere etwas oberflächlich und man kann nicht mitdenken und mitfühlen. Ansonsten ist es lustig mitzulesen, wie sich die Familie Walters benimmt. Sie sind nämlich nicht in der Lage offen mit einander zu reden und schweigen alles still.
Eine nette Unterhaltung für zwischendurch.
Eine nette Unterhaltung für zwischendurch.
This book was a long, long read and if I hadn't had the attitude I did in the beginning I don't think I would have made it to the end. The book was full of different bits of information that made it a bit more interesting than just knowing the basic facts you usually would find in a book. Although, it is definitely a chick-lit book, which was just what I was looking for! I wouldn't recommend this book if you wanted a fast read, although I did read it quickly. It is definitely a book that would t...more
After reading the brilliant 'Hopeless Romantic' by the same author, I was very disappointed with this book. I couldn't realate to any of the characters and thought Lizzy was pretty awful, not someone I empathised with.
I struggled to get to the end of it, but I did, because I can't not know how a book ends, no matter how poor it is!
I struggled to get to the end of it, but I did, because I can't not know how a book ends, no matter how poor it is!
This is the second book that I have read by Harriet Evans and was disappointed. It had great characters and it was funny, but it was entirely too long. At about page 200, you feel like sometimes she veers to so many different things and that the book has been dragging on. Getting to the last page of the book definitely took some work.
I thought that the ending of this book was oddly flat and static (although it did come to its inevitable conclusion), but I otherwise enjoyed the story. I particularly appreciated Evans's gift for descriptions, especially her depictions of "home," which really sounded like a place where I'd want to live.
I'm not sure why I finished this book except I didn't have anything else to substitute at the time. It started out okay but I quickly got tired of Lizzy and her lack of backbone and all the crazies in her dysfunctional-to-the-max family. It wasn't too difficult to figure out who her romantic interest would be in the end.
It was cute, but a little boring. It didn't start getting good until about the last thirty pages. Harriet Evans is such a good author, I think, but if you look at the back of the book at her picture, she appears a bit crazed. This was the second book I had read by this author.
This book was just okay. So many books end with a happy ending (the girl gets the guy), and the next-to-last chapter in this one had a not-happy ending that would have been much more realistic. But of course the last chapter neatly wraps up the romance. I'm getting kind of tired of that.
Although my family doesn't have an amazing home in the English countryside, I have experienced many of the same thoughts/emotions when returning to our modest family home in Montana. The characters are excellent and the combination of humor and deep feeling is enjoyable.
At the end of the day this book is just a piece of chick lit. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and the ending was satisfying. Evans did leave a couple of things unanswered, which was frustrating, and it was a little predictable. But all in all a good holiday read.
Not usually a fan of chic lit but this was a freebie so thought I'd give it a try. Started off with potential to be a good book but I quickly became irritated by the main character, Lizzy. She comes across as irrational and infuriatingly jumps to conclusions whilst never establishing any of the facts. The secret of why the house was being sold did make me want to read to the end but why you would never just ask your parents the question was frankly rather improbable and made me want to slap her!...more
Harriet Evans is one of the only "chick-lit" authors that I can stomach because she give me enough twists and believable personalities to push the "chick" into regular old "fiction". "Going Home" even provides a few wonderful little twists right up until the end...loved it.
Good beach read.
Good beach read.
I’m a big fan of “girly books” and Brit lit about the trials and tribulations of love and lovers but for some reason I had a tough time getting attached to this book. It definitely picked up in the middle but started lagging for me towards the end. I found the main character’s relationships hard to relate to and difficult to understand. Additionally, the ending became increasingly frustrating as it seemed to drag on for chapters. That said, it still left me feeling warm with it’s very happy (and...more
I think I might have read this book before - I may even own another copy of it - as it seemed strangely familiar. I thought the characterization was better in this book, but the last chapter was awful (and I like romantic endings!)
I always find Harriet Evan's books a little too long and detailed. She is a good writer - no question of that, but maybe too much of a good thing. I liked this well enough, but there were times I got a bit bored and wished the story would move along a bit quicker.
Jul 31, 2011
Chrissi
added it
Brilliant book. My first of Harriet's and I absolutely adored it. Good characters, good (if a little predictable) story and great writing! Will definitely be reading more of her work in the future.
I wanted to like this book a lot more than I did. The story was cute, and I identified with the main character. Unfortunately, at times the story was incredibly slow. Twice, I fell asleep on the couch while reading it.
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I was born in London in 1974 and grew up on the mean streets of Chiswick, where I went to school. I was a completely undistinguished pupil in every way, except I absolutely loved reading and drama. My only achievements from the age of 5 to 18 were, a) winning a doodling competition at primary school (of a witch flying in the sky with balloons...more
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I was born in London in 1974 and grew up on the mean streets of Chiswick, where I went to school. I was a completely undistinguished pupil in every way, except I absolutely loved reading and drama. My only achievements from the age of 5 to 18 were, a) winning a doodling competition at primary school (of a witch flying in the sky with balloons...more
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