Nowhere Like Home by Sara Shepard takes the pressures of motherhood to thrilling extremes when Lenna reunites with her friend Rhiannon, who disappeared years prior, at a mothers-only community called Halycon.
Lenna, who feels let down by her husband after the birth of their son and wishes to escape her complicated past, takes up Rhiannon’s offer to join the commune. But what begins as an invitation from an old friend and an opportunity to repair that fractured friendship becomes a twisted web of secrets and toxicity that spans years, social media, and middle-of-nowhere Arizona. As suspicions rise about Halycon, Lenna must discover why she was brought to this commune before it’s too late for her and her son.
Be aware that Nowhere Like Home is a much slower burn than it seems.
There isn’t a jaw-dropping twist until nearly halfway through the book, and it doesn’t become propulsive again until much later. So, the real hook is that the characters are hard to pin down, making it an interesting challenge to trust any primary character during the plot’s rising action. Therefore, the slow build to Nowhere Like Home’s climax would work better if more time had been spent making characters and their relationships distinctive.
Lenna and Rhiannon’s friendship is at the heart of Nowhere Like Home, but the book cuts through its imperative framework, including why they would want to be friends in the first place. So, everything that follows is a bit flimsy. Then, it introduces too many supporting characters at Halycon through a perspective (Lenna’s) that primarily – and justifiably, at times – points out their and the place’s red flags. That pattern and their minimal presence make it so there’s hardly a reason to like, dislike, or understand the supporting cast of characters. For a book about the “mommune,” Nowhere Like Home fails to establish the falsest of hopes that Halycon would benefit anyone, let alone mothers needing support.
That disconnect with the characters and setting doesn’t help the believability of the final 30 pages or so’s cascade of (eventually somewhat predictable and repetitive) twists.
Similarly, everyone and everything in Nowhere Like Home hinges on motherhood, but it doesn’t spend enough time (either in conversation or retrospection) detailing Lenna’s relationship with her mom. It would have been beneficial to understand that dynamic better. However, the book is consistent that Lenna’s other relationships, including reflections on her mother, usually come secondary to Rhiannon. Consequently, it works that Nowhere Like Home never precisely explains why Lenna wants to leave Daniel.
However, it is a letdown that there isn’t more of Daniel and Lenna. As a romance fan, it’s challenging not to want to know more about the gaps in their dynamic. Their meet-cute is such an intriguing hook to leave readers on. Nevertheless, it’s disappointing that the book doesn’t dig into Lenna’s mother/daughter dynamic more because the dual timelines do such a service to Rhiannon’s relationship with her mother.
Really, the book’s structure does such a service to Rhiannon on an individual level. She is easily one of the more fascinating characters from Nowhere Like Home. The depth of her representation on the page, even in her absence, makes it seem like she may have worked better as the dominant (albeit unreliable) narrator.
Regardless, Shepard’s positioning of Lenna within the narrative reveals more about the character and how she defines herself – in general and as the primary narrator. Lenna is frequently more concerned with her complicated and often co-dependent relationships with other women and herself. That innate understanding of her character makes the book’s ending a win, even if the journey there is less than optimal.
It is worth noting that the women’s stories in Nowhere Like Home include subject matter that may trigger some readers. The book brings up mature and serious topics (manipulative relationships, sexual assault, mental health, teen pregnancy, etc.).
Unfortunately, it often feels like the book is more interested in including those issues than commenting on or exploring them to greater lengths. Sometimes, it even sidesteps broader conversations that pertain to the book’s dominant theme – motherhood.
Surprisingly, Nowhere Like Home’s most successful tool is its structure. The convergence of its two timelines is seamless, even through multiple POVs. The confusion, tension, and uncertainty the book’s structure creates supports the success of one of the book’s best reveals (No spoilers!). It’s clever (and very much on brand for Shepard) that the book also plays with time through social media. It’s challenging not to recognize the evolution of technology from Shepard’s Pretty Little Liars books to Nowhere Like Home.
The gradual crunching of the timelines and use of social media underscores the anxieties of knowing someone too much – or not at all. That uneasiness guides the book.
From the beginning, this book keeps the reader asking questions about the unreliable narrator(s), the characters’ relationships, and the place supposedly meant to be a safe haven. It’s a slow, sometimes suffocating exploration of female friendship and motherhood that doesn’t provide many answers or much hope and levity until its final pages. It’s an intense, often frustrating read, but even that reflects the book’s most prominent themes. So, if you’re a fan of Shepard’s and want to cozy up with a psychological thriller this February, Nowhere Like Home is the book for you.
—
Nowhere Like Home by Sara Shepard is available now, wherever books are sold.
