Customer Reviews

Coming Home

5 star:		(75)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I couldn't decide what books to read when I have my surgery ~~ and I was browsing through my shelves when I saw this. I remember loving "Shell Seekers" and "September" ~~ so I thought, who can write better than Pilcher when you're groggy and tired? I took the book, read the first fifty pages and was hooked on it from the beginning ~~ Pilcher is a classic storyteller. And her descriptions of Cornwall is absolutely stunning. This book literally beckons you to sit and have a cup of tea, cozy up on the couch and with the radio playing softly in the background ~~ and this book will take you away.

This book focuses on Judith Dunbar over a period of years ~~ before the WWII started and shortly after it ended. She was fourteen when her mother and younger sister went back to Columbo to rejoin their father, before his move to Singapore. Judith was sent to live at a boarding school where she struck up a life-long friendship with Loveday Carey-Lewis, a genteel young girl who loved horses and her home at Nancherrow. Judith becomes immersed in the Carey-Lewis family as well as with her aunts and uncle ~~ and falling in love ... Their stories swept over the years with trimuphs, tragedies amidst the backdrop of the war ~~ love, sorrow and joy. Dreams discovered and shattered ~~ it is a story of a time that has never been lived since then. It is about Cornwall and WWII.

This is a beautifully written novel ~~ poetic and descriptive and lovely. It is also a romantic novel ~~ not a romance novel ~~ just incredibly romantic where it does gloss over the horrids of the war but realistic enough to pierce the heart over the terrors that some of the people had faced. It is also a lush novel ~~ full of thoughts and dreams and letters written in the old-fashioned way ~~ telling stories of lives bygone. It is just an incredible novel ~~ one that I am pleased to have in my possession. Pilcher is one of the few writers in my library that I collect ~~ her writing always beckon you home. This novel is just one of those that you just have to read to know what I am trying to say here.

3-11-05

If you are a fan of family sagas, love cozy and comforting reads, admire protagonists who endure hardship and survive, then you will love this monumental work by Rosamunde Pilcher.

Set in the days preceeding, during, and after World War II in Cornwall, London, and other other spots, the reader is introduced to Judith Dunbar at age 14. She is left at a girls' school in England while her mother and younger sister Jess go to join Judith's father in Singapore. The separation stretches on for years, and Judith grows through her teen years with the help of new-found friends, the affluent Carey-Lewises, but mostly survives due to her own indomitable spirit.

There is so much to say about a book that goes on for nearly 1,000 pages, but for me the plot was secondary to the endearing characters who populate this book. From Judith to her bestfriend, Loveday Carey-Lewis, the inspiriing Diana, the haunting Gus, the stable Jeremy and the host of minor characters who come to life, this is a riveting read that takes you through the trauma of war and its effects on ordinary people living their lives as best they can. The book is filled with many happy moments and perhaps even more heart-breaking ones, but always there is hope and strong survival skills working to make things right in the end.

There are some books that I know so well, I can pick them up and just start anywhere, anytime, and be whisked away without moving a step. Coming Home is just that.

We meet Judith Dunbar, a 14 year old girl in 1935, as her mother and baby sister are preparing to leave her in an English boarding school and join her father in Singapore. For the next ten years, we follow Judith and her new-found family through love, death, and the outbreak of a war that will tear Judith's loyalties in two.

Rosamunde Pilcher's worlds, as always, are filled with people who you would love to meet and consider friends. The families she writes about -- even the disfunctional ones -- are families you wish you could be a part of, just so that when you finally finish the last chapter, you don't have to leave them forever. (Or, you can just start the book again ... )

It isn't often that an author such as Rosamunde Pilcher comes around. She writes in the narrative voice that literally coaxes you to go to the couch and curl up with a pot of tea and her novel. COMING HOME was the first Pilcher book I read and afterward I was captured as one of her biggest fans. Pilcher has a way with each of her books to capture her readers from the first page to the last. In any Pilcher novel the reader finds themselves relating to the main characters by feeling their pain and their happiness.

In COMING HOME, this main character is Judith Dunbar who finds herself torn from her family due to World War II. Pilcher takes the reader to Cornwall and a festive amount of characters that Judith begins to know. They are an odd assortment: The best-friend the reader cannot do without, the romantic, the family atmosphere that Judith so craves---- and in end, the excitement involved with simply putting all these characters together in one story.

After reading COMING HOME I found myself in love with Judith and her best friend, Loveday Carrie-Lewis. The entire novel was simply enchanting. Readers of Pilcher's are looking for a book written with class, a good narrative voice, and a happy ending.

COMING HOME has all elements that a good book has---- well built characters, a big problem, a careful solution, romance, relationships that steadily build, and the change that all main characters' make from the first time you meet them, to the last. COMING HOME is a wonderfully classy read. All readers will find themselves in enthralled with Judith's life and all who are in it.

At the end of each Pilcher novel you sigh because it's over, and you're running to get another. All Pilcher-readers find themselves loving her easy going, narrative voice which is completely refreshing. Pilcher takes on a voice in COMING HOME that makes World War II seem more bearable to read about, and all crisis's easier to deal with. If people could live their lives like Pilcher writes a novel, everything would seem just a little bit easier to deal with. After a long day at work or at school, COMING HOME is the perfect book to take a load off and just wrap up in a novel that will entertain the reader until it sadly comes to an end.

This is my favorite book. I'm reading it again - again.

My favorite thing about this book is the way you get to feel so close to all of the characters. You follow the life of one girl through WWII. It might sound a little boring but, believe me, this girl's life is anything but ordinary. She is left in a British boarding school while her parents are living in Singapore. She is 14 and starting school in an unfamiliar place. Eventually she makes friends with Loveday Carey-Lewis (silly name, I know) and this changes her life drastically.

As Judith grows she encounters loss, love, and a creepy old guy. It's a book about growing up and, of course, coming home.

Rosamunde Pilcher makes all of the characters seem so real. It is easy to picture them in your mind and even easier to feel for them. Judith is not the only character whose life you get caught up in. There are many characters who we can all relate to. Personally, I think I'm a bit like Loveday.

Anyway, this book is a definite must-read.

This is firstly the story of Judith Dunbar but also tells the story of a wonderful family the Carey-Lewises. The characters are so real that by the time I finished this book they were all like friends. While reading it I laughed and I cried, never before has one novel made me do both.

My 84 year old Nan read this and loved it, my 58 year old Dad read this and loved it so when it was passed on to me, at the time an 18 year old, I did not expect to get beyond the end of chapter one. Three days later as I closed the book I was sorry it was over.

This book is fantastic. The UK paperback edition is 1016 pages long and yet it felt as though it was over in no time. I have read this book twice and that is not something I have done with many of the thousands of books I have read. I would recommend that anyone who likes to read, read this book. You'll have a wonderful time and make some new friends along the way.

I had read this book a few years ago, but decided to check it out from my library last Saturday before a snowstorm arrived. What a great book to be snowed in with.

In addition to being a good love story involving several couples, it is a great book on life as it was before and during WW II in Great Britain. The hardships the people endured are told in great, and sometimes amusing, detail. No matter how bad things become people just carry on. A good cup of tea seems the answer to everything! Descriptions of food and houses are thorough.

I would hope that younger women would read this for the historical value. It is a way of life that will never return.

This was the first book by Pilcher I ever read. Strangely, I have very mixed feelings about this book. Pilcher fans will certainly love it. The author does a wonderful job to get you acquainted with her characters. By the end, I truly felt that I had personally met all the characters in this book. It felt as though I had made new friends. I will likely never forget Judith, the heroine, and all the many people she meets during those years described in the book. Pilcher's way of describing (often in excruciating detail) every scene, room, mood, the weather, clothes, food, etc. allowed me to actually be right there with her characters. In that sense, this novel will stay with me forever. On the other hand, Pilcher seems to struggle somewhat when attempting to describe her characters' feelings and thoughts. Often, I was unsure why a character behaved a certain way and why he or she felt a certain way about others. Pilcher does a great job describing the war years from the British perspective. I really felt like I was living these horrible war years with them. I often felt tempted to make myself a nice cup of tea because tea seems to be the British answer to everything (loss, grief, joy, relaxation, etc.). However, there were points in this novel where I played with the thought of abandoning it. Too little seemed to happen to justify the pages and pages of text. But this I could not do. I felt compelled to wait it out with Judith and the others and see what life (or Pilcher) had in store for them. That is why I was so disappointed in the end. It seemed as though Ms. Pilcher finally got bored with her characters and abruptly felt the need to just bring it all to a conclusion. After all the heartbreak, longing, joys, losses and disappointments, the end seemed irritatingly flat. Too bad, I wish I could have felt rewarded for sticking it out with Judith and her friends. Read this if you have a lot of free time and are a very patient reader. You will fall in love with Judith, her family, the Carey-Lewis family and all the others. Once you're done, you will feel as though you made new friends. You may be disappointed in the conclusion and your patience will be tried along the way but, maybe, getting to know these characters will make it all worthwhile for you. Oh, and don't be surprised if you develop the habit of drinking tea instead of coffe and if you find yourself booking a vacation to the English seashore.

I first read "Shell Seekers" and have been reading everything she writes ever since. "Coming Home" is a beautifully written look back at the time just before WW2, during and after. Living in America we sometimes don`t realize what the English endured for such a long time. Pilcher makes you live all the joy and sadness her characters go through. The second reading was just as satisfying as the first.

I've read the book 3 times, so I must find it worthwhile. Some very good characterizations: Judith, Gus, Jess and some very interesting relationships that I wish had been developed more fully. Unfortunately, there were some central casting characters as well: Diana is straight out of a 1930's MGM movie. But many of the scenes Pilcher writes (especially Judith's reunions with Jess and Gus) seem true to life and that's what you'll remember. My I recommend Elizabeth Jane Howard's Cazalet Chronicles to any of you who liked this book? Starting with "The Light Years", this series of 4 books tells the story of an English family from 1938 to 1947. An excellent work!