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Monte Price's Reviews > Homebodies
Homebodies
by
by
I think when I initially read this book I was willing to round down to a three, but with some distance I'm gonna try and round up? Maybe it's the rose colored glasses or maybe it's more reflective of my thoughts as they've settled and less of a gut feeling.
I went into this book with the wrong mindset, something that I can really only blame myself for. Coming out of this book it reminded me of another book that I read recently, Maame [ my review found here ], something that I hadn't really considered.
I also went into this book thinking that the racism Mickey experienced was going to be the central element of the story. That we were going to read this manifesto that she penned and experience the whirlwind of that. I think that what Denton-Hurst was able to do instead was more interesting? Judging by the other reviews of this book I've seen a lot of people felt this way and were disappointed to read about the aftermath of Mickey's firing and the messy life she has.
I think that it would be a disservice to the story to try and pitch this to you as just a messy sapphics, partly because I think the audience that would jump at that would not at all care about Mickey and the other Black sapphics at the center of this story. But I think to pitch it like that would flatten what Denton-Hurst was trying to do and the reader's experience with Mickey during this moment.
The arc of this book doesn't really feel like a thing with a trajectory, and when I was able to recognize the book for the snapshot, a window into a moment of a characters life, it started to click together for me.
I'm also biased because y'all know I love it when people who write for magazines start putting out novels. The book leans more contemporary than literary, but for this particular story I don't think that was exactly a hindrance to my experience and now that the book is out in the world I hope to see it getting read by y'all.
I went into this book with the wrong mindset, something that I can really only blame myself for. Coming out of this book it reminded me of another book that I read recently, Maame [ my review found here ], something that I hadn't really considered.
I also went into this book thinking that the racism Mickey experienced was going to be the central element of the story. That we were going to read this manifesto that she penned and experience the whirlwind of that. I think that what Denton-Hurst was able to do instead was more interesting? Judging by the other reviews of this book I've seen a lot of people felt this way and were disappointed to read about the aftermath of Mickey's firing and the messy life she has.
I think that it would be a disservice to the story to try and pitch this to you as just a messy sapphics, partly because I think the audience that would jump at that would not at all care about Mickey and the other Black sapphics at the center of this story. But I think to pitch it like that would flatten what Denton-Hurst was trying to do and the reader's experience with Mickey during this moment.
The arc of this book doesn't really feel like a thing with a trajectory, and when I was able to recognize the book for the snapshot, a window into a moment of a characters life, it started to click together for me.
I'm also biased because y'all know I love it when people who write for magazines start putting out novels. The book leans more contemporary than literary, but for this particular story I don't think that was exactly a hindrance to my experience and now that the book is out in the world I hope to see it getting read by y'all.
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I loved your point about how the hometown purgatory story ends up feeling more interesting than the alternative story we could have gotten. I am so tired of reading books about workplace microaggressions that have nothing interesting to say about them, so this was a nice (and surprising) refresher!!! So many people I know are in a season of living at home/with family and figuring things out, and I love when modern authors pay attention to characters who are waffling through that period in their lives.
As a result of this hometown purgatory, I think the lack of trajectory you mention feels like form following function. This is an uncharted pit stop in Mickey's life, and so it made sense to me that the narrative arc of the story should feel somewhat uncharted, as well. I do think that I was a bit confused about whether Denton-Hurst was trying to end the story without a conclusion, or if I just disliked both of the conclusions she offered and ignored them. It seemed like she was trying to wrap up Mickey's time in MD by being like "going home and being with your people is authentic and great and better than being another lost twenty-something in NY!", and that she was trying to wrap up Mickey's workplace drama by being like "speak your mind and you will inspire all the other workplace drones suffering in silence!" Neither of those conclusions interested me, and I kinda do wish we'd landed with a better "so what." However, I think I am trying to make my peace with the idea that every book is not a sermon, and every story doesn't need a moral conclusion!!