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Family Tree #4

Home Is the Place

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Far and near. Lost and found. Four girls. Four generations. Georgia cannot figure out what's going on in her family. Her mother, Francie, is extremely overprotective. Her grandmother, Dana, and her great-grandmother, Abby, don't speak to each other. And Georgia's great-great-grandmother also had some secrets that nobody else knows about.Georgia knows this because she's found her great-great grandmother's diary hidden in a wall in the family's house in Maine. Reading the diary makes her think of her own struggles - and draws her even closer to the mysteries of her family as Abby's hundredth birthday approaches.HOME IS THE PLACE is the heartfelt, remarkable conclusion to Ann M. Martin's Family Tree series, which has followed Abby, Dana, Francie, and now Georgia from girlhood to womanhood, showing readers the intertwining, extraordinary ways we grow up.

229 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 30, 2014

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240 people want to read

About the author

Ann M. Martin

1,120 books3,075 followers
Ann Matthews Martin was born on August 12, 1955. She grew up in Princeton, New Jersey, with her parents and her younger sister, Jane. After graduating from Smith College, Ann became a teacher and then an editor of children's books. She's now a full-time writer.

Ann gets the ideas for her books from many different places. Some are based on personal experiences, while others are based on childhood memories and feelings. Many are written about contemporary problems or events. All of Ann's characters, even the members of the Baby-sitters Club, are made up. But many of her characters are based on real people. Sometimes Ann names her characters after people she knows, and other times she simply chooses names that she likes.

Ann has always enjoyed writing. Even before she was old enough to write, she would dictate stories to her mother to write down for her. Some of her favorite authors at that time were Lewis Carroll, P. L. Travers, Hugh Lofting, Astrid Lindgren, and Roald Dahl. They inspired her to become a writer herself.

Since ending the BSC series in 2000, Ann’s writing has concentrated on single novels, many of which are set in the 1960s.

After living in New York City for many years, Ann moved to the Hudson Valley in upstate New York where she now lives with her dog, Sadie, and her cats, Gussie, Willy and Woody. Her hobbies are reading, sewing, and needlework. Her favorite thing to do is to make clothes for children.

http://us.macmillan.com/author/annmma...

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5 stars
154 (36%)
4 stars
161 (38%)
3 stars
85 (20%)
2 stars
16 (3%)
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5 (1%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 50 reviews
Profile Image for Manybooks.
3,852 reviews100 followers
March 21, 2022
Well, first and foremost (and definitely also quite appreciated), the fourth and final instalment of Ann M. Martin’s Family Tree series (Home is the Place) does successfully, realistically (and indeed finally) tie up a few so-called loose ends and offer some necessary and as such also eagerly sought after explanations as to the reasons for the massive amount of toxic family relationships constantly being encountered in especially novels one to three, in Better to Wish, The Long Way Home and Best Kept Secret (such as for example the fact that Dana has ever since her father’s death by drowning in book two, in The Long Way Home, wrongfully believed that her mother, that Abby somehow is to blame for all of this and that in book one, in Better to Wish Abby’s mother actually did not die of an illness as reported but in fact committed suicide), and indeed how all of these secrets and a seriously all encompassing lack of family togetherness and trust have truly been the main instigator of much of the tradition of pain and anguish, of divorce, secrecy, and plain unrelenting negativity and family nastiness shown in huge amounts in all of the Family Tree novels and with Home is the Place definitely being no exception here, although I do appreciate the relatively positive ending, where family secrets are finally revealed, where the characters actually start talking and offering explanations and forgiveness.

However, although I do find the positive, secrecy destroying and truth revealing ending of Home is the Place sufficiently appealing and therefore also much more pleasant than ALL of the other three Family Tree novels (which ALWAYS seem to end up with up in the air and usually pretty awful and dismal concluding sentences and scenarios), I still do think that in Home is the Place, Ann M. Martin once again and annoyingly focusses much too overtly and consistently on problems, on doom, gloom and pain (with Georgia being literally so relentlessly bossed to death and overly protected by her always and constantly anxious mother that she ends up running away, and with once again rather a litany of negative events and problems marching through and at Georgia’s entire family of four generations). And while I do find much of the contents and themes encountered in Home is the Place less of a reading pain than in particular the first and second series novels, for me to actually consider Home is the Place enough of a reading pleasure for a four star rating, Ann M. Martin’s narrative would need to be considerably less negative and constantly harping on this sometimes seemingly relentless gloominess.
Profile Image for Audrey.
1,390 reviews221 followers
February 7, 2022
(minor spoilers)

This final volume of the Family Tree series focuses on Georgia, daughter of Francie (who must have loved the tradition of giving daughters terrible names). Georgia is born in 1995, best I could tell, a little older than my first child (as Francie was a few years older than me).



Francie is extremely overprotective to the point of causing strained relationships with everyone in her family. At the end, she finally reveals her near-abduction from Book 3, and Dana finally apologizes to Abby for being a brat. That was very satisfying. The epilogue is Abby’s 100th birthday in May 2022, which will soon no longer be in the future.

The book covers 9/11, about the only historical event. It was mostly unclear how old Georgia was; I had to really pay attention to the dates and do some math if I wanted to know. The book also focuses more on the earlier generations—Abby and Dana and Francie get a few chapters of their own, and Georgia discovers Abby’s mother, Nell’s, journals. So the nostalgia factor was high. Overall, it’s a gripping story and satisfying wrap-up of the whole series.

(Georgia is so impressed with her “large” family. Ha! She only had a couple of cousins.)



Language: Mild
Sexual Content: None
Violence: None
Harm to Animals:
Harm to Children:
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Profile Image for rue  ⋆˚꩜。.
198 reviews23 followers
April 8, 2023
the beauty of this series is..... something i can't even put into words. everytime i reread it, i find new things. returning back to this series, as a sixteen year old, i wasn't sure if it would live up to my memories.

but oh, it did.

it felt like returning back home, back into a world where i felt safe. following abby, dana, francie, and georgia, into adulthood, it felt comforting and nostalgic in a way that i can't explain. the last time i read these books, i was maybe eleven or twelve. i didn't yet understand how heart-wrenching growing up would be. how it would hurt. how it would be beautiful. how much change happens over the course of only a handful of years.

reading these now, only a few years younger than georgia when the series ends, it was...... interesting. i found myself relating to these characters, so much more than i had in previous years. i cried, sobbed, through certain scenes (which, if you know anything about me, it's very rare for me to actually cry over books. i typically just set mildly teary eyed.)

the disability representation was so beautifully done. ann m. martin clearly understood what it's like growing up with a disabled sibling. my two younger brothers both have down syndrome, and one of them is very much like fred, and the other is very much like peter. i'm usually annoyed with how disabilities are dealt with in books, but not in family tree. ann m. martin doesn't shy away from the ugliness of ableism, she made both fred and peter so much more than just token disabled characters, and i- can't even put into words how much that meant to me and my family. i've never seen that kind of representation in non ownvoices books (aside from ann m. martin's main street series 😉).

and oh, each character felt so, so real. these characters weren't romanticized, or made to seem perfect. rather they were realistic. with each new book, i felt like we dived even deeper into character development. abby, as she struggled with her father, and with her mother, and the various tragedies that seemed to follow her into adulthood, she felt real. dana, with her grief, and longing to escape everything so that she can finally again, she felt real. francie, with her trauma induced ocd that shadowed every single big event of her life, she felt real. and georgia, as she tried so hard to escape the hold of her overprotective mother, she felt real.

this series isn't light. it's far from it, actually. the content includes alcoholism, death, divorce, suicide, and more. yet somehow, even in the shattered darkness, the light shines through.

i can't do this series justice with words, so i'm just gonna direct you guys to the aesthetic board i made for it.

please take the time to read this underrated series. i promise you won't regret it. <3
Profile Image for Kassandra Hickson.
14 reviews2 followers
February 1, 2017
This story by Ann M. Martin starts with a little girl name Georgia. Each chapter is a different setting and a different year. You see Georgia grow, and you see the changes that happen to her and her family. When Georgia's family moves into the family beach house that has been in the family for generations, she uncovers a family secret hidden in the house. She loves her family, but over the years there had been miscommunications. It is time for the family to talk it out, and better understand each other.

I highly recommend this book. I could not stop reading it, and it has a great moral. I loved to see the time go by and the character change. The story is humorous but is also very deep. I liked the fact that family was a central idea.
Profile Image for Ashley.
1,764 reviews33 followers
January 26, 2015
I feel like Home is the Place kind of got what I was hoping for in the Family Tree series right - I really enjoyed the few chapters from the other women in the series' perspective, and I feel like I would have liked those in the other books. It might make the connection between the adult women and the young girls we read about more distinct. (I had mentioned in a previous review how Abby seemed like a different person between books one and two.) I also really liked how Georgia found Nell's - that's Georgia's great-great-grandmother, Abby's mom - diaries, because I felt like that brought the whole series full-circle, and included the thoughts and feelings of a generation that hadn't even had a book. It's pretty amazing to read about five generations of women, even if one was through diary entries.

Again, though, I would have liked more interaction between the different generations of women, the girls who starred in the previous books. I felt like this book did a better job at tying the series together, having more interactions with the main characters of the other books.

All in all, I give the series three and a half stars, and would probably recommend it, even if it didn't live up to my expectations. I'm already looking forward to rereading them all in succession, instead of having to wait months between books!
Profile Image for mk ♡.
319 reviews3 followers
December 21, 2025
its 6:31 am.. i wanna know what she wished for. cathartic tho 🤍
Profile Image for Barbara.
15.1k reviews315 followers
March 22, 2015
Perfect for a mother-daughter book club or one focusing on generational relationships, this four-book series comes to a satisfying close with Georgia's story. Life is good for the Nobel family until the events of September 11, 2001 change everything. Georgia's mother Francie feels all her feelings of anxiety come crashing back, and she insists on moving the family from its comfortable Princeton home to the family cottage in Lewisport, Maine. Readers will enjoy having glimpses of Georgia's life as she settles into her new home, takes guitar lessons, and resists her mother's overprotective ways. She also discovers a journal kept by her great-great grandmother, Nell. The author uses this book to tie up many loose ends, but what I particularly enjoyed was how there were chapters devoted, not just to Georgia, but to the three (four, really, counting Nell's diary) generations who came before her, all with their own secrets, hopes, dreams, and disappointments. While I enjoyed all books in the series, it might have provided insight into each generation had the author also included a chapter or two from those other perspectives. With this book, as with the others, I couldn't help thinking about the price paid by others when someone insists on having his or her way, in this case, Georgia's father who gave up his teaching job to move to Maine. Once again, the author reminds readers of the importance of small personal events, those triumphs and tragedies, as they play out against the backdrop of a larger, historical canvas. It would have been fascinating to read these stories from the perspectives of the men in the lives of these talented women, but I'm glad to have met Abby, Dana, Francie, and Georgia in this true story of recent American history, lived out on the East Coast.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for Jennifer.
431 reviews
February 3, 2021
This review is on the whole series, with emphasis on the last book. Book one starts on my birthday in 1930, after the prologue, when Abby is 100 in 2022. The ending is the worst of the four. Book two has the least likeable main character until the very end. The ending is perfect. Book three was the most depressing to me. But the ending is the second best. Book four was the best of the series except for the abrupt ending. It left me with more questions than answers. This book is told mostly by Georgia, but some chapters are told individually by Abby, Dana, and Francie. They are her great-grandmother, her grandmother, and her mother. They tell their main stories in books one, two, and three. This series begins and ends with Abby's perspective. It makes a full circle from Abby's story when she is 100 at the beginning of book one to when she is 100 at the end of book four. I would have appreciated the series ending more if it had been more detailed. Book four was the best because of the four different perspectives. I would have also appreciated more chapters from each of the women. It was nice to read each of their thoughts again in the last chapter before the epilogue, but that wasn't enough for me.
Profile Image for Ms. B.
3,749 reviews80 followers
January 31, 2015
Satisfying conclusion to the Family Tree series as the story returns to Maine. Secrets are shared between the four generations and (gasp!), Dana grows up.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for Lori.
149 reviews
February 25, 2015
Liked how she linked all four books together and brought in things to make sense of other books. Very enjoyable series that I enjoyed sharing with my daughter.
Profile Image for January.
2,947 reviews127 followers
February 27, 2024
Home Is the Place by Ann M. Martin
The Fourth Generation
Family Tree #4
215-page Hardback

Genre: Family Saga, Juvenile Fiction, Historical Fiction

Featuring: 2001-2022, 6-27, Bildungsroman, Maine, Princeton, New Jersey; Valentine's Day, Historical Family Home, September 11th, Multiple POVs, Halloween, Christmas, Multicultural Family, Musician, Guitar, Mother and Daughter Relationships, Martial Issues, Diaries, WWI, High School, Secrets, Death, Full Circle, Centenarian

Rating as a movie: PG/PG-13 - mentions of drugs, suicide, and murder

Songs for the soundtrack: "Yesterday" by The Beatles, "Hot Chocolate" by Tom Hanks

My rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️👧🏼👩🏼

My thoughts: This was different than the other books because you got POVs from all 4 generations. It was a nice change to see how far they've come, every book starts with a birthday, features the same holidays, at least one death, and ends with a marriage to a childhood friend. Multicultural marriages are also in each book, but I had issues with this one. A nearly 9-year-old Georgia has a black grandmother, Denise, but it never occurred to her that she was part black, and while she's thinking this she thinks of her father's mother's parents being black, not his mother. That's an odd train of thought, and she has no features hinting at her racial makeup. The best part of this story was Francie those secrets from her childhood have caught up with her and affected her parenting. This story's timeline moved much faster than the other books, I am not sure if that was intentional to show that time seems to move faster as you get older or because she wanted to cover so much material since it had 4 POVs and the childhood followed a pattern readers should be familiar with. Dana finally wants to repair her relationship with Abby, I don't know why they had beef this long but put up with Luther all those years. Anyway it was nice to see this family through the years following the oldest daughter of each family and I loved how the story was set 10 years into the future via letters, Abby was blessed in the end.

Recommend to others: Yes. There are some hitches but overall this was a good series and this was the best book, even though this MC got shafted out of her full story.

Family Tree
1. Better to Wish (2013)
2. The Long Way Home (2013)
3. Best Kept Secret (2014)
4. Home Is the Place (2014)
Profile Image for Jess.
133 reviews10 followers
October 7, 2025
This book broke me. This series broke me. In the absolute best way. With Georgia's story I alternated between being so, so happy and so very sad. The revelation of what happened to Abby's mother did not come as a surprise whatsoever, but was still satisfying to see in print. I was glad to see Fred and Peter acknowledged again, and to learn Rose's fate, though I was a little sad we didn't hear anything more about Julia. And while this book had a LOT of work weaving together the many plot threads started by the previous three, it did so effortlessly, and still gave weight to Georgia's own story. Also, this book was the only one where I was alive for all the historical events, so it was great to see how the characters reacted to things I myself have lived through. On a final note, I read a few reviews of the other books and this one, and I just want to say: these books are not doom and gloom. They acknowledge the everyday tragedies that most of us experience and live through. If you haven't lived through the death of a parent or sibling, a major historical event, poverty, mental illness, or any of the other things the Nichols-Burley-Goldberg-Noble family had to experience, consider yourself really lucky. Because most young girls I know face this stuff. Me and my friends, all in our late 20s and early 30s, have faced this stuff. Our mothers faced this stuff. It's not crazy to think that tragedy is something that happens in life, and it's not crazy that someone wrote an excellent series of books about it.
Profile Image for Rosie.
529 reviews2 followers
December 22, 2017
Out of this four-part series, this final book was my favorite (maybe because it was set during my time as a kid/teenager). This book focuses on Georgia, the daughter of Francie (from book 3), granddaughter of Dana (from book 2), and great-granddaughter of Abby (from book 1). Georgia's story is set during the 2000's/2010's.

Like the stories of other women from her generation, Georgia has her share of struggles and sad moments. What really got me interested in this book is how Georgia knows there's something going on between her mom, grandma, and great-grandma but she's not sure what it is. Whatever happened between them happened before she was born, but it's still affecting their relationship with each other. The biggest event was when Georgia found a diary from Nell, the mother of Abby, that definitely helps tie up some lose ends of the series. At the conclusion of the book, Georgia and her family are able to discuss the past and their relationships. I thought this was a good conclusion to a series that kind of got off to a slow start but somewhat improved over time.
2 reviews
Read
March 14, 2022
In the beginning of the book, Georgie turns 6. Throughout the chapters of the book, there is a different time and place. Georgie used to live with her mom. She was very over-protective and always cared about what Georgie did. Her mom ends up running away after the 9/11 incident. The 9/11 Incident happened in the beginning of the book which grabbed my attention since I am familiar with the issue. I like how she wants to learn her families history but sometimes the book got very confusing on where she was. People 10-14 would enjoy this book the most because family is the central idea. I also loved watching the character (Georgie) grow in this book as a dynamic character.
5 reviews
March 6, 2020
The reason i chose this many stars is because the book was really good. i took some stars off because the book was a little boring, some parts weren't t as interesting as the rest of the story. I would recommend this book to anybody that likes to read about peoples journey's. I would also recommend this book to people that already read the first three series of this book. Something that would make this book better is if they had a movie to these books.
Profile Image for Kissa.
567 reviews4 followers
September 29, 2021
A charming story about four generations of women as they deal with life's challenges and coming to terms with secrets they've kept from each other. Although this is the final book of the series, I didn't feel completely out of the loop for not having read the earlier books. The pacing was a bit slow and disjointed at first until Georgia discovers the hidden journals, then it was easier to draw connections with everything. Overall, it is a nice, quick read.
Profile Image for Susan.
351 reviews4 followers
February 13, 2018
In this final installment of the Family Tree series, we meet Georgia and her brothers Richard and Henry. We encounter all four generations of women a few times along with their secrets. Georgia finds Nell's diaries. And Abby celebrates her 100th birthday in 2022. Will there be healing among the women of the family?
Profile Image for Liz Owen.
144 reviews10 followers
May 18, 2021
This book was really great! I think my favorite part was Georgia finding Nell’s journals. Even Abby and Dana making up made me excited!! I can relate to this book a lot as I was the youngest of 4 generations of women. Reading Georgia interact with her great grandma made me dearly miss my great grandma
Profile Image for Sasha Bredenhof.
319 reviews10 followers
April 2, 2023
This was definitely my favourite of the series! It was really cool how it was all wrapped up and how they forgave each other, etc. I loved seeing the generations and all the children together in the end, and to see all this family's joys and sorrows and tragedies.
Didn't love everything about this series but they were still worth it!
Profile Image for Emma Aeilts.
128 reviews
August 21, 2023
4/5. honestly really loved these series. i have been emotional the whole time reading it. i truly feel like i know all these women, and i cant believe i just watched their lives and history play out when i swear i was just reading the beginning. cannot wait to see that in my own life as well. thank you grammy for telling me to read these. very thankful for the women in my life <3
Profile Image for Erin Barber.
24 reviews
June 10, 2024
this is the last book in the series, and I didn't get a chance to read it when I was younger so it was incredibly satisfying to finish this series off as a young woman

I gasped out loud when I realized that 9/11 was gonna be the traumatic event
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for A..
Author 1 book11 followers
January 16, 2025
I appreciated that some of the loose ends from the previous books got tied up, but on the whole it felt a bit unsatisfying. I would have liked more closure and more time spent on the reconciliation between generations.
Profile Image for Lisa.
390 reviews
May 3, 2025
Last (#4) in the series and a wrap-up. Georgia's overprotective mother, Francie (main character from Book 3), demanded her family move from her hometown of Princeton, NJ as it triggered a traumatic childhood event. Francie lives in the shadow of this event.
Profile Image for Monique.
1,100 reviews23 followers
Read
October 15, 2024
I still wanted Julia's family line
(I did have a favorite twin)
5 reviews1 follower
December 26, 2024
I loved this book a lot, just not as much as the other ones because it’s more modern and less emotional except for the part where all the generations of women are together a couple times.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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