Home Safe [Paperback]

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0749942681
• ISBN-13: 978-0749942687
• Product Dimensions: 5 x 7.8 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (97 customer reviews)

More About the Author

Elizabeth Berg won the NEBA Award for fiction for her body of work, and was a finalist for the ABBY for Talk Before Steep. Her writing has appeared in numerous publications, including Ladies' Home Journal, Redbook, and the New York Times Magazine. She has also taught a writing workshop at Radcliffe College. She lives near Boston, Massachusetts.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

40 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A perfect celebration of writing, April 28, 2009

By 

Phylora (Mill Valley CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Home Safe: A Novel (Hardcover)

After finishing Home Safe, I sat for the longest time looking out the window thinking about books and writing and stories and how lucky we are to have someone like Berg who is such a beautiful and insightful writer, a writer who, as her character Helen says, wants to "make a family of the world." I am sure having Berg's ability to go under the skin, to feel things as deeply as she does, cannot always be easy. But she always manages to find the beauty. I loved this book which is a celebration of the art of writing as well as a great story. The ending is one of the most perfect endings I have ever read. It's stunning.

31 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Berg has other wonderful books, this isn't one of them., June 4, 2009

By 

Stacie Leigh "Stacie Leigh" (PA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Home Safe: A Novel (Hardcover)

I turned a colleague on to Elizabeth Berg when I recommended The Year of Pleasures" to her, my favorite Berg book. My colleague was so happy that she bought this title opening day, read and lent it to me.

As so many others, I had 'reader high hopes' - the curse of a past-excellence creating author, I'm sure. This book was as if the editor kept calling to make some money off her and this is what she came up with.

Main character Helen is irritating, and I would not even want to be her friend - I have never said that about any other work from Elizabeth Berg - I've raved. The one point I appreciated was Helen coming to the realization that her dead husband was NOT a perfect mate. So often, after the death of a loved one, we put them on a pedestal during the mourning, and that is normal, but true healing does not happen until we can acknowledge their flaws without feeling guilty about it.

'Home Safe' does not have the open-door, come on in warm feeling of most other Elizabeth Berg books. I should have read The Year of Pleasures again instead. :)

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Grinding my Teeth, October 13, 2009

By 

Eager Reader "seriousmysteryfan" (Stuart, FL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Home Safe: A Novel (Paperback)

I am more than half way through this book and not sure I will finish. I can tell you, as a former teacher, I've worked with 10 year olds with more common sense than Helen. I have read a few of the authors other books and while she's not one of my "must read" authors, I have enjoyed some of her other work. Helen's relationship with her daughter makes me wonder why Tessa isn't applying for jobs in Mozambique. Helen is so pathetically inept that she strains credibility. Just about the time you begin to wonder if she can brush her teeth without directions, she ADMITS she often doesn't!