Customer Reviews

Homefree

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4 star:		(4)
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I really enjoyed this book! It opened very mysteriously and maintained the suspense until the end. The whole concept of "Homefree" and how it involves teens with supernatural powers is very cool.

I'd love to read more about Easter and her mystical friends. I hope a sequel is in the works!

Linda Joy Singleton
author of The Seer series

Easter Hutton thinks she "just might have the worst life in the world". Her parents are divorced, she's had her fair share of step-dad/boyfriend experiences, and now her mother is pregnant. Add to that a temporary home in a rundown Florida trailer park and a new school where her classmates would rather throw raw eggs at Easter than talk to her, and the reader will agree that her life is not the greatest.

If all that is not bad enough, Easter has begun "astral-projecting". One minute she is in French class and the next, she's back in her old apartment in Atlanta with a blind man and a mad parrot. What is going on?

As her personal life seems to be exploding around her, Easter's strange new experiences bring her in contact with other teens who have similar special abilities. With the help of some old friends and new acquaintances, Easter discovers there's a place for special people - Homefree - and she's been invited.

In HOMEFREE, author Nina Wright creates a wonderful mix of reality and fascinating paranormal activity. Easter's less-than-perfect life is so believable that when the "weird" stuff starts happening, the reader just hangs on and goes along for the ride. This book would be a great addition to any classroom or library.

Reviewed by: Sally Kruger, aka "Readingjunky"

Easter is used to worrying about her mother. Ever since her parents divorced, Easter's pretty much been raising herself, watching her mom go from boyfriend to boyfriend and moving from place to place. Now they are in Florida, dealing with the fact that her mom's about to have a kid with her newest guy - who is still married to someone else.

Now Easter is worrying about herself. While sitting in class at her new school, she feels as though she's back in one of the places she used to live. She really feels it and she sees it. This isn't a dream - it's astral projection, with her body in one place and time, and her mind in another.

Then Easter starts to worry about her best friend. Andrew has disappeared. So did Easter's father, after the divorce, but this situation is different. Easter feels compelled to find Andrew, the only real friend she's ever had, and make sure that he is okay.

During another out-of-body experience, Easter meets a very strange man who seems very certain that she has a special gift. Though what he tells her sounds crazy at first, he is making more sense than anyone else around her. She learns about a place where gifted teenagers go - where she, too, can go. Should she use her power to find Andrew? Can she ever really be free of her mother? Will she finally have someplace to call home?

HOMEFREE begins as the story of a girl with a less-than-stellar home life, then evolves into something supernatural. Along the way, Easter subconsciously grows into the role she is eventually given, so subtly that she is surprised by her newfound abilities and the faith others have in her. Readers will know she had it in her the whole time, and they will be eager to return to her world in the sequel, SENSITIVE.

Easter Hutton hasn't had an easy life. After her parents divorced, her dad disappeared and her self-centered mom started in on a string of new husbands and boyfriends, dragging Easter along with her. One new town and high school after another, Easter rarely develops friendships, making her life not only confusing and unsettling but lonely as well. The one exception is Andrew. He lives in Atlanta, where Easter resided a few moves ago, yet he and Easter still talk via email. He is the one person who keeps Easter sane.

Most recently, Easter and her mother moved to Tampa, Florida. Her mother is pregnant, and her mother's married boyfriend has moved them out of the picture while he (supposedly) breaks the news to his wife. Easter's new school is just like the others; she's been there two weeks with no hope of any potential friends. In fact, the entire school thinks she's a freak.

Then something strange starts happening. Easter sort of blacks out, as if she's asleep, but with her eyes open. She definitely isn't dreaming, though. The first time it happens, she finds herself in her old house in Indiana. She witnesses another teenager living there, yet the teen can't see her. The next time, she arrives in her old bedroom in West Virginia. Easter figures out that she is somehow astral-projecting herself right out of her own body! But why? And how?

Then, if possible, Easter's life grows even more complicated. Her mom has a miscarriage, ending up in the hospital. And her best friend, Andrew, disappears! Easter continues to astral-project, but she doesn't seem to have any say in when or where she goes. She finally gets some answers, from her French teacher of all people. Madame Papinchak is part of an organization called Homefree that works with kids who have special and unusual talents, like Easter and her friend Andrew. Easter has no clue about the excitement and adventure she is getting into, or about the best part of all --- finally finding a home where she belongs.

Author Nina Wright continues to prove that she has a talent for writing. She uses a descriptive flair that helps readers connect with the characters and a sense of humor that adds a few laughs along the way. HOMEFREE is a story filled with imagination and page-turning excitement. And fans can look forward to more mystical adventures with Easter and the Homefree organization --- a sequel is due out in the fall of 2007.

--- Reviewed by Chris Shanley-Dillman, author of FINDING MY LIGHT and THE BLACK POND

Author Nina Wright takes the reader every step of the way in the shoes of sixteen-year-old Easter Hutton's time and place travel, in a car or inside her own head. Easter shares her devious and mysterious journey with a host of eccentric, and a few normal, two and four-legged characters. Against Easter's better judgment, her single mom pathetically grabs for Mr. Right, regularly abandoning Easter to her own devices. Friend Andrew is on the same side of unreality, thanks to the facilitation of Easter's Florida high school French teacher who also drafts Easter's old outsider boyfriend into the group calling itself "Homefree." This poignant funny send-off enables a sequel.

I love this book. Okay I said it. I'm not a reader of fantasy-type books but this one is so grounded in reality, is so funny and touching and original, that I can't wait for the sequel. Easter speaks with the true soul of a teen struggling to find her place in the world. Her angst over trying to figure out why she is astral projecting really captures the teen plight of not understanding why things happen when they happen. Nina Wright is a fresh new voice on the scene. I hope to see more.

Eccentrics abound in this teen book that will intrigue adults, too. Ms. Wright has come up with a main character who, I hope, will charm us in many books to come. Great children with great powers makes for great reading.

The book "Homefree" by Nina Wright was fast-paced and easy to read. Just when you thought they were done throwing something shocking or unexpected in your face, they throw something else into the mix that makes it all the more complicated... but that's where the good things stop. It was easy to read, so it's a great book for some of the younger readers, and it was interesting, but the story seemed to move too quickly in a one hundred-some page book and many of the things that happen just seem to out there, even for a book about a girl who astral-projects herself to everywhere she's ever lived.
Easter Hutton is the heroine of the story, an unlucky girl with a cracked mother who moves them from town to town after every break-up. Everywhere she goes, she seems to be known as the outsider and the freak, never really fitting in. Her newest home is with her mom's newest love interest, who's already married. She thinks this new guy is going out the door... that is, until her mother reveals that she's pregnant with the man's baby. They move again, to a place the man has made for them for the time being until he sorts things out, and of course she doesn't like it there either... and everything seems to get worse when her mother miscarries (again, if that wasn't bad) and she starts astral-projecting in her French class. Not only is her mother going insane now, but she thinks she's going insane as well.
And that's not even the end of their problems; it just gets more complicated from there. It's not bad enough that this already sounds like a bad soap opera with the married man and the miscarriage and the angsty teenager, but then it adds a bunch of stuff it really shouldn't have. Sometimes, when I was reading it, I wished the story would just back up a second and get a little bit simpler with all the complications, not only with Easter and her mother but Easter's first boyfriend, Easter's best friend and his boyfriend, the French teacher, and some guy with a parrot who's living in one of her old apartments, along with some girl who seems just like Easter but deals with her situation a lot different.
The plot is complicated for a short book like this, but don't get me wrong; the story is good. I just wish Nina would have made it longer so that everything wasn't overwhelming.
Other than this, the plot was pretty good, the story well-written, easy for younger people to read while not to easy for those who are older and want to read this as well. I would recommend this book to those who are in Middle School.

I read this book *after* reading its sequel, SENSITIVE. Why? I found the second book in the library and couldn't put it down. Afterwards I rushed out to buy this book so that I could find out where the adventure begins for Easter, Cal, and Andrew--three troubled teens recruited by a mysterious underground agency. All three kids have been trying to ignore the fact that they have paranormal powers they can't control. Homefree, the agency that recruits them, is determined to train them how to use their powers to improve the world. I love all the quirky characters in this book (and the sequel)--even the ones who make life difficult for Easter and friends. A fascinating read that will leave you hungry for the next book.

I'll be honest: I never considered myself a fan of "alternate reality" books. Or teen fiction, for that matter. This novel is both, and I absolutely loved it. HOMEFREE is an imaginative, original take on what it means to be an outsider. Easter Hutton discovers that her lousy life is actually a doorway to a better life. Indeed, a life in which she has amazing powers! Suddenly Easter realizes that she is uniquely able to help herself and others who are as troubled as she is. All this does not come without a price, of course. And even in this alternate reality, Easter has to deal with authority and ambiguity. Isn't that what coming of age is all about? Excellent, creative fiction written in a fast pace with crackling dialogue.