Customer Reviews

Homefront

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Occasionally, a book comes along that you know you will want to share before you've finished the read. Homefront is such a book. Drawn in from page one, I stayed mesmerized, needing to know how Mia survives her own emotional battles after Jake (her boyfriend) leaves for Iraq. The author has given us a character full of depth; opening her life, sharing her fears, and making us care. And in the end, allowed me some small bit of insight in to what my mother must have faced when my dad was off at war.

I started to read "Homefront" late at night, before I slept, and the next morning when I woke I didn't leave my bed until it was finished. My own life was on hold as I followed the life of a young woman whose boyfriend deploys to Iraq. Even though I am nothing like the main character, Mia, I FELT what she was going through. I am a military spouse and spent many hours of my own watching CNN live coverage and chewing the nubs that I called my fingers whenever a convoy was attacked. So often, when we see the people whose lives are entwined with those of the deployed Armed Forces, we think they are amazingly strong to endure such separation. They are, they are strong, but they're also weak at times. Sometimes, beneath their public face they pout and curse and weep. In a shameful moment, they may imagine life without the beloved face they kissed so many months ago. Mia's unseen life is fascinating and the people she sort of...finds herself with are about as mismatched as they can be-another frequent reality of military families. Her story is all about the little moments; the events taking place are merely a vehicle to take you to her innermost thoughts. Kristen Tsetsi is an amazing writer, the words in her story placed like the sometimes bold, other times faint and whispering strokes on a painted canvas. Her timing plays havoc with your senses. She doesn't give you what's expected at all. Loved this book!

Highly recommend this novel. Sucked-in from page one. Tsetsi's writing gets you so involved with the main character (Mia): you cry with her, laugh with her, feel her, become intoxicated with her. Get sick with her, feel the pain. Couldn't put it down til the last page, which comes all to sudden. Can't wait for her next one!

All of them - the neighbors, her man's mother, the newscasters, her cab fares - are driving Mia crazy and crazier as she waits for something, anything, to let her know he's okay as he fights in Iraq and she waits at the upstate New York Army post which serves as her impromptu home.

She is a woman in limbo, free-falling through strata of emotion exquisitely described in an ebb and flow of free-floating anxiety. One waits with her, close by the side of this principal of many finely crafted characters, until the conclusion of a dramatic interlude in the life of a young, vital woman. This tale of war takes on a non-partisan stance in a rarely seen account of the world as it exists when all life's plans and all of life's true pleasures are suspended by happenings that are beyond one's control.

Plot/Storyline: 4 Stars

This book did not have a conventional "plot," it is more just an ongoing storyline. The story follows a segment of Mia's life when she is left at home while her long-term, live-in boyfriend is deployed to a war area.

The storyline flowed well with dates at the beginning of each chapter allowing the reader to have a clear concept of the timeline. I like this format as it never leaves me guessing as to how much time has passed or trying to pick out phrases such as `last week' or `two months ago'.

There is a side story of Mia's friend, Denise, who is a `left at home' wife. This was an interesting addition as it showed an entirely different viewpoint from Mia's.

The story does suffer somewhat with not many specific events occurring and most of it simply being thoughts and observations of Mia. However, I will admit that I am more of an action oriented reader. Although, the reader is given the impression that Mia spends the bulk of those many months sitting in her apartment without actually doing much of anything. This just struck me as a little unbelievable.

I found the ending to be very abrupt and unsatisfying.

Character Development: 3 Stars

When I look at character development, my first question to myself is: Did I like the characters or dislike the characters as seemed appropriate for what the author was trying to accomplish? In this work, I felt the author was attempting to get the reader to sympathize somewhat with Mia.

Unfortunately, I just couldn't sympathize with Mia at all. She came across as a spoiled brat with odd, illogical motivations. So many of her actions are just plain selfish. I think perhaps a little more information about her past would have created more understanding and sympathy.

The character of Denise is done fairly well. While she is not likable, she is a somewhat sympathetic character.

Jake is another character that I found it hard to get a feel for with his ranging from caring boyfriend to clinging `mama's boy.' His choices regarding contact with Mia while he is deployed are either illogical or just mean.

My favorite character, Donny, almost makes up for every other character's flaws. He is funny, sad, and interesting. The method of slowly leaking the information regarding his life is just excellent.

Writing Style: 5 stars

This author's prose is a beautiful thing to behold. Her descriptions and depictions of emotion are wonderful and vivid. Much of this work has a poetic charm that is a joy to read.

The dialogue is completely realistic. The letters are in voice and fitting.

Editing/Formatting: 4 1/2 Stars

There are very few editing errors. The formatting was annoying with double and triple spacing between paragraphs. The dialogue formatting was the worst with double spacing between one and two sentence responses.

Rating: R for Language and Adult Situations

War counts the most casualties off of the battlefield. There is a long, delicate chain of lives connected to every soldier that falls in a field of fire. Each of those individuals, linked by blood or love, feels a ripple of pain that outlives the political issue that sent some mother's son or daughter off to combat. And still we fight. Every generation seems doomed to total the costs of war.

As a television news correspondent, I spent years reporting from military bases where young families and lovers were being separated by the decisions of old men. I wondered what their lives were like after the planes and trains had departed and carried off the fathers and mothers and daughters and sons into an unknowable risk. In a few cases, families opened doors to our camera crews and shared their agonies of lonely Christmases, missed births, uncelebrated anniversaries, and just the ache of the great wait.

I recall being in the gymnasium one morning at Ft. Hood in Texas as the families were saying their good-byes and a nine-year-old girl was unable to release the leg of her father's camouflaged pant leg. She screamed as he dragged her toward the door and the inevitable separation. Unable to avoid her pain, I approached her with my camera crew and asked what I realized, even then, was an inane question about why she couldn't let her father go to the Persian Gulf.

"Don't you think the country needs your daddy?" I asked.

"No," she cried. "I think I need my daddy."

I had never had a better understanding of the agony of military separation until I read Kristen Tsetsi's haunting and lyrical debut novel Homefront. As drawn as any culture invariably is to the drama of the battle, the daily struggle at home is equally littered with minefields of emotional and personal peril. Tsetsi has illuminated this part of war with her crystalline prose and near-perfect rendering of a story about those who wait under the awful burden of not knowing an outcome.

Homefront is a love story with one of the lovers absent. Jake and Mia were on the verge of marriage or something damned near like it when he went overseas to fly in combat. Tsetsi, who writes with the power of an old soul, artfully deconstructs their aspirations and fears to show us that love, even under the best of conditions, is little more than an artifact of an imperfect heart and an inexplicable emptiness we can never name. She turns a discerning eye on the human condition and leaves us with great sympathy for her characters and ourselves while also providing us the unsettling knowledge that we are all to blame for what we allow to happen in both love and war.

Homefront is populated by the same people that live in your hometown and they have similar human failings. They surrender to their urges, act spiteful to cover their hurts, and spread cynicism over the wounds of others as a form of salve to stop their own bleeding. Kristen Tsetsi seems far too young to already know that the greatest story of all is about our endless search to look outside ourselves for fulfillment and meaning in love. Nonetheless, she has taken us inside the hearts and houses of people who love and hurt as a consequence of war, and she has set a light beside them for us to see that they are also counting their own casualties. Her sentences are as true as a bullet whizzing past the ear and her dialogue has the accuracy of a recorded conversation that was perfectly eavesdropped.

Love and pain is the plot of Homefront but in the hands of this talented artist they are a mighty force. "The heart," F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, "is not an instrument of precision." As a simple truth, his statement is mostly indisputable. But Kristen Tsetsi proves that no matter how imprecisely we use our hearts, our stories are all worth telling.

Author: Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential, Bush's War for Reelection, and The Architect.

When chopper pilot Jake Lakeland is sent to Iraq for weeks or months or possibly years, his girlfriend, Mia, is left behind. She's not alone, of course, but could be forgiven for feeling so, given the company: an annoying potential mother-in-law who insists on calling her adult son "Jakey"; an occasional friend, Denise (whose husband, William, is also deployed); some odious work colleagues; anti-war neighbours; and a cantankerous alcoholic artist and self-declared Vietnam vet calling himself 'Doctor Donny Donaldson'. A qualified college English instructor, Mia has put her own life on hold to support Jake's choices. She drives a cab for four dollars an hour while he flies Apaches. It's "just for a while", of course, before Jake leaves the army and their real life begins. Though he claims to love her, Jake wouldn't marry Mia before the deployment ("that's just not a good reason"). As Mia now deals with his absence, she starts to wonder if they should be together at all...

I've read dozens of self-published novels, and this is the first that didn't feel like one. The difference? Craft. Tsetsi gets it. She understands structure. She understands drama. She hooks you immediately with an overtly sensual opening, sets up the page-turning question of Jake's fate, and then, once she has you firmly in her grasp, takes you somewhere else entirely: to a dark, compelling limbo of longing, loss, impotent rage and psychological disintegration. It's an intimate novel about "the emotions", but, importantly, it's not the slightest bit self-indulgent. While presumably inspired by some real-life experiences, Tsetsi hasn't made the typical POD-author mistake of thinking her own life is so uniquely fascinating that all she need do is pour her heart onto the page. The language is clear, sharp and economical. The scenes are well chosen and well constructed. What's left out - the time jumps, the absences - is just as important as what's left in. There is a great deal of writerly effort here, which is why the reading is so effortless.

There are some slight quibbles: Tsetsi knows when to use action and dialogue, but some scenes still feel long; the depiction of Denise seemed (to me) occasionally inconsistent; and the repetitive drunken dialogue with Donny is probably true-to-life but it does encourage skimming. However, these issues are ultimately minor ones. This is a superior novel. From a nation that wouldn't let its own press publish photos of dead soldiers coming home, we need more stories like this one. Patriotism shouldn't trump compassion. Yet this is ultimately a novel that surpasses its wartime context. It isn't just a story about army wives, but one about relationships generally and the need for each person to choose their own path. Tsetsi has found the universal in the specific and she makes us feel it, too. That's good writing, and it makes "Homefront" deserving of a much wider audience.

Because we humans are how we are, there are millions upon millions of war stories, told and untold. But how many war stories focus on the spouses left behind to wait, their every day a minor horror of on-edge, clenched-teeth wondering? Less numerous still - in fact, this is the only one I know of - are those that feature a not-yet-spouse of a departed service member.

Kristen Tsetsi's novel is, excuse the gushes, fresh, involving, honest, dark, and very real. Her writing is often simple, unapologetic, and unadorned with fancy descriptions. However, at the same time, it exemplifies the old standard that a writer is an observer of human condition and action, in its attention to the detail of its characters' behaviors. The flick of the wrist to tap away the cigarette ash, the smudge of lipstick in the corner of the mouth... the little things that make life real. The anger, despair, confusion, and desperate hope of its distinct characters are so clear that you'll want to meet them and wonder if you haven't already.

Homefront is that rare book that combines the page-turning urge with the ability to make you think. I won't say what it made me think because I want you to read it and see for yourself if it makes you re-interpret your outlook on, not just war and those left behind, but the relationships we choose and how the people we love affect our lives. And of course, how we affect theirs.

I have discovered, over the last 20 or so odd years, that the majority of authors tend to steer away from the gritty side of reality. Now, I'm not talking about psychological thrillers and autobiographies of young Hollywood starlets with coke addictions, what I'm talking about is the full rang of emotions people feel during loss.

When Kristen sent me "Homefront" I thought..."wow... this seems kind of interesting..." but I was in no way prepared for what I read.

For at least 9 years now our country has been dealing with some pretty radical changes. 1. We had our hearts crushed as we watched 2 of NYC's most prominent features burn to the ground. 2. Our worlds were turned upside down with the decline of what was once a steady economy, and 3. We waved to our sons, husbands, brothers, uncles, and friends as they packed their gear and headed off to war.

It's hard to image what it feels like to watch a loved one go off to war, unless you have been in those shoes. It's hard to image the tricks your mind plays on you or the damage the absence can do to your physical body. It's hard to image what it feels like to wake up everyday hoping that there isn't a knock on your door.

Mia is 1 half of a whole...Jake is the other half, and now Jake is gone.

The events that unfold after he leaves is just a small glimpse into the life of a soldiers other half. Without the stability of marriage or an engaging job Mia is left with nothing to do but cope with the facts of life, but when coping consist of bottomless bottles of booze and a broken home, it becomes the most difficult adjustment in the world. What happens to the mind when it can't get past loss? What happens to the mind when it can't see past the haze of being alone? What happens to a persons will to live, when they think their "heart" is dead?

"Kristen Tsetsi" did what most authors wouldn't dare do... she wrote the ugly side of waiting. She wrote it without flowery words or manipulated perception...what she wrote was, simply put, the truth. I have cried while reading before (you already know this) but never once has it been because of raw unbridled emotion. "Homefront" made me realize that things aren't always so peachy on the other side, that people are damaged...or can get damaged very easily. I said that the writing wasn't flowery, but that doesn't take away from the brilliantness of it, writing this novel, in any other way, would have been inconceivable. To change it would be a crime.

I understand the necessity for people to read "happy," I understand that 90% of the time, when someone decides to read a book they want to escape from the realities of everyday life, and I know that this book is by no means consoling, happy, or light hearted...but I still think it deserves your time.

Grab this book. Read this book. Then put it down and never pick it up again.

Not because it's not great, but because sometimes the lesson only needs to be taught once.

Happy reading my fellow Kindle-ites and remember: This is your moment to walk a mile in their shoes, don't miss that opportunity!

Most of the time, writing war stories is fairly straight-forward. You've got all those bullets and mortar shells to keep things moving along. State-side, in the WWII playbook, it moved along fairly smoothly also. Especially when you had the wives left behind (June Allyson, Claudette Colbert, et al.) being dressed by Edith Head. But things get a lot messier during unpopular wars, without a Hollywood sound track and gauzy filters on the camera lens to make the tear tracks look like pretty things.

Kristen Tsetsi writes about the hidden conflict a world away from the big one. She does it with style, heart and a profound reality. It is a difficult road. Not much happens when you are basically waiting for your lover to not die. Life goes on and on and on.

What Tsetsi does to force the reader into the solitary confinement that is Mia's long wait is to write in a style that is fraught with peril: first person, present tense, flat of voice, sharply focused on tiny details, with no broad strokes. Any comment is from an objective journalist, not a diarist. It is technically challenging and she pulls it off.

The result is a heart-rending aria of a woman frozen in time, with no future and little hope. But almost at the point where you want to close the cover and walk away in despair, the large sweep hand of the second hand moves a click. And then another. Finally, it is the beginning of a new day and the slender early rays of self-awareness and a future hope peak over the horizon.

The book does not have a Hollywood ending. It ends based in the same real world that inspired it.