"This is Where We Live"

This is Where We Live, by Janelle Brown.

She was going home, of course - there was nowhere else to go. But it wasn't just that: She was incapable of giving up. As her mother observed, it was just her nature. There were things she wanted - and they weren't outrageous things to want - a nice home, a happy marriage, financial stability, the ability to pursue her dreams. A few bad months, one terrible fight, shouldn't mean the end of all that. It shouldn't mean that they suddenly didn't love each other anymore. She would go home and save it all.

I had never read anything by Janelle Brown before this novel but it was very, very good. The prose is among the smoothest I have ever read, and her characters, including Claudia and Jeremy, the main ones, are very relatable. They both make bad choices along with the good but we can see where they are coming from, and how they came to make those choices, and can't help but wonder what we would have decided if we were in their position.

I could actually see this novel translating to the "big screen" very well. Brown has also written the book All We Ever Wanted Was Everything, which I just checked out today from the library, and I am hoping that is a good as this novel was.

5 stars out of 5.