Customer Reviews

The Long Way Home (The Homelanders)

5 star:		(36)
4 star:		(36)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Excitement was what I felt when I saw the second installment of The Homelanders Series. In the last book, THE LAST THING I REMEMBER, readers were left with a lot of questions. Charlie West went to bed one night. When he awoke, he'd been captured by a group calling themselves the Homelanders and that wasn't the worse part. A year had gone by and he has no memory of it. If that wasn't bad enough, he's been found guilty of murdering his friend.

In book two, Charlie West is still on the run from the police and the Homelanders. He heads back to his hometown where he finds his friends, Miler, Josh, Rick, and his girlfriend, Beth. They believe he's innocent and help him find some answers as to who is behind the terrorist group. Beth fills him in on parts of the year he can't remember.

This series is written with a Christian slant. The preachiness seen in many of the Christian YA books is replaced with realistic values and Charlie West is very pro-America. Both this and the first book are packed with plenty of action that had me flying through the pages.

Although it features a fugitive for a hero and the police are generally his adversaries, this book is very conservative. Other characters mockingly refer to Charlie's patriotism and his character as a "True Believer" in home, God, and Country, but the undercurrent of the book is that Charlie is absolutely right to be a True Believer and his faith is what gets him through the tough times. Charlie has no proof for his belief that he is innocent and that he is "the good guy," and his faith suffers sometimes. Ultimately, though, faith is what keeps him going. He believes that proof is out there, and the action-packed backdrop for this crisis of faith drives the narrative. Most readers will only notice the action--my son raved about certain fight scenes and another somewhat spooky scene--but I don't think it's a coincidence that this is published by Thomas Nelson, a traditionally Christian publisher. The moral absolutism behind this book clearly posits that good and evil exist as real entities, that faith is justified even in the absence of facts, and that moral relativism is a slippery slope to terrorism (at one point a character as much as states this as a tautology).

Conservative parents will probably applaud these underlying themes, but more liberal-minded folks may take offense. Parents trying to teach that right and wrong only make sense in context and that there are no "absolutely true" things in life may find that this book subverts their point of view. On the other hand, parents who are teaching that some things are just right and some are just wrong will find subtle moral support behind the 24-esque action of this adventure.

The second book in the Homelanders series continues with the main character, Charlie West. Charlie woke up one day as a wanted man and he doesn't know why. Both terrorists and the police are trying to catch Charlie and all he wants are some answers. He goes home to try to find the reason behind the situation he has found himself in. His friends from home join Charlie and his quest for what has happened. The first book in this series was great and this book is a great continuation. It's a fast paced book leaving you wanting for more. Highly recommended.

The Long Way Home (The Homelanders) picks up right where The Last Thing I Remember (The Homelanders) left off. Charlie West was a normal student, studying for school, studying karate, and finding young love, when he woke up - having lost a year of his life and having been tried and found guilty of murder. What happened in that lost year?

Running from both the police - the good guys? - and the Homelanders - madmen? - while trying to piece together what happened, Charlie was completely and utterly alone. Even his Sensei's dojo wouldn't be a safe haven. It took a surprise at the old haunted house for him to even begin to find out what happened during that lost year. It wasn't the ghosts that scared him; it was the reality that was terrifying.

This well-written book is nicely paced. When I put it down, I'd wonder what would happen next, and the book didn't stay down for long. Having read both The Long Way Home (The Homelanders) and The Last Thing I Remember (The Homelanders), I'll be looking forward to The Truth of the Matter (The Homelanders) in November 2010.

This is a fast paced action filled second novel in the Homelanders series. The first novel being The Last Thing I Remember.
Charlie West goes home to see if he can discern some answers as to why the police and terrorists are after him. Charlie can't remember what happened to him and how be became the accused killer of his friend. Charlie works his way home and solicits the help of his friends to help find out who is the real murderer of his friend.
I found this second installment to be thrilling, entertaining and I look forward to the next in the series! I also think this is a great series for teens (my teen loved this too) especially for a reluctant reader.

Home is the second in a projected series of books entitled The Homelanders. The hero, Charlie West, is an ordinary high school student who goes to sleep innocent and wakes up to find himself the object of a nationwide man hunt. Somehow, he has lost a year out of his life, and during that time, apparently, he has killed, and been convicted of murdering, his best friend. A group of homegrown terrorists called the Homelanders are also pursuing him; from what Charlie has unearthed, they are a network of Islamo-fascists (Charlie's term) who plan to bring down society by a series of violent terrorist assaults. Charlie doesn't know how to get out of the mess he's in: he can't trust anyone because everyone seems either to want him back in jail or dead. In this installment, Charlie makes some progress in discovering who framed him for his friend's murder and he saves his girlfriend (but he can't even remember them becoming close) from death herself. Klavan writes as well in a novel for young adults as he does in his adult thrillers (True Crime, etc.), which is saying a lot: he never condescends to his audience. As to this book, Charlie is a very appealing and believable hero and the plot barrels along from one crisis to another. It's all highly satisfying.

Oh, it's such a good hook. I guess nothing makes you appreciate the simpler things in life like being the subject of an intense manhunt. Teenaged high school student Charlie West wakes up one day and, just like that, a whole year has been wiped away. But that's not the worst of it. Charlie finds himself on the run, wanted by the police for the fatal stabbing of an old friend. But that's not the worst of it. He's also being sought by a rabid foreign terrorist group calling itself the Homelanders. And, no, that's not even the worst of it. What eats at Charlie is that he's not so certain that he's innocent. What if he really were guilty? What if he himself is a terrorist?

THE LONG WAY HOME is the taut sequel to THE LAST THING I REMEMBER in Andrew Klavan's THE HOMELANDERS series. I'm late to the party; someone else had already mentioned 24 and Jack Bauer when talking about this series, but I think this comparison is quite apt. This series is 24 for teens. The Homelanders, these are some implacable, seriously bad hombres chasing Charlie down, trying to murder him. And in trying to work himself out of this mess, Charlie ends up going back to his hometown, back to the site of the murder. Where his childhood friends await him, helping hands extended, no strings attached. Where the Ghost Mansion sits empty and desolate, the perfect hidey-hole for a young desperado like Charlie.

And, back home, Charlie West ends up unearthing key events which happened in that lost year. One revelation concerns the murder Charlie'd been accused of committing. Another eye-opening bit of news which had sucker-punched Charlie when he woke up with amnesia was that, sometime during that period, he and his friend Beth fell in love. And, yes, Beth was waiting for him at Ghost Mansion, too. We finally learn the backstory of their romance.

Andrew Klavan hits the ground running, opens the book at a breakneck pace - featuring an intense sequence set in a library - but once Charlie extricates himself from that trap, Klavan slows the action for a bit, long enough to establish solid characterizations and strong themes of friendship and loyalty. I found myself liking Charlie even more during the quieter, more introspective moments, and also liking Josh, Rick, Miler, and Beth, all of whom never once wavered in their belief in Charlie's innocence. These characters, steadfast and fun, really made the book speed by. There's also a villain lurking in the back, but this wolf in sheep's clothing is pretty easy to spot.

The thing about Charlie West is that you never do worry about him, not really. He's got this knack of escapability, he's got his faith, and he's got that karate training. So the chases are involving and the scrapes he gets into make you turn the pages like mad, but the most unsettling sequence surfaces not when Charlie himself is again up against it, but rather when one of his friends - and the nerdiest, wimpiest friend at that - gets cornered and Charlie has to talk him thru trouble via a live video-audio feed.

By the end of this book, we'd have been made privy to some key developments and Charlie West will have survived a few more nerve-wracking run-ins and gained a new direction, gotten a new lead. And, by the end, it's hinted that bigger and even more sinister things are in the offing. I'm sold on Andrew Klavan's storytelling, which is clear and adrenalin-injected and driving. THE TRUTH OF THE MATTER is the third book in the series; it's coming out November 2010. I've already marked that sucker in my calendar. Andrew Klavan is - to quote the kids - monster.

I stepped out of my usual reading genre when I requested a copy of this young adult novel to review. The plot is fast-paced and exciting, and I was surprised to find that I wanted to read more when I was done with the book.

Charlie West is a patriotic American teenager who somehow becomes a fugitive from the law, as well as the target of a terrorist organization. To complicate matters further, he can't remember an entire year of his life. During that year, he was convicted for the murder of his friend, fell in love, and he somehow became involved in an anti-American underground group of terrorists.

From the beginning of the book, when he outwits the terrorists and is nearly caught by the police, it's obvious that Charlie is intelligent. However, Klavan allows him to make enough mistakes throughout the book to keep the plot jumping. In this book, which is the second in a series of three, Charlie meets the real killer and finds out part of the reason why he was framed.

With so much and so many against him, Charlie needs all the help he can get. He has a small but loyal group of friends who risk their own safety to help him, and although the book isn't preachy, Charlie is a Christian who believes God hears him when he prays. He also has a black belt in karate, and uses his skills several times when he's pitted one-on-one against his enemies.

Thank you to Thomas Nelson publishers for providing me with a complimentary copy of this book.

In book one of the Homelanders series, Charlie woke up in the process of being tortured. He didn't remember how he got there or why. He didn't remember anything that had happened in his life for the past year.

In book two, we follow Charlie on a desparate run to find out the answers. He makes it to his home town and finds some old friends (well, they actually find him) and he starts to learn some of what happened in the past year. He is wanted for the murder of another old friend. He has already been tried and convicted on overwhelming evidence.

He is being chased by the police as an escaped convict and he is being chased by another underworld group known as the homelanders. These are the people who were torturing him when he woke up and who want to kill him now.

We start to learn the what, how, and why of Charlie's situation.

It is a good story for the teens. The action is fast paced. The violence is mild, despite the unsavory characters that want Charlie's blood. The romance is sweet and innocent. The theme is patriotism and the suspense ligners on.

The Long Way Home by Andrew Klavan is the second installment in his Highlanders series for young adults. I wasn't fortunate to read the first but don't feel like I missed any part of the story by starting the series with the second book.

This book follows Charlie as he tries to put together the pieces of the year-he-can't-remember. It begins with a high speed chase in which Charlie attempts to get away from the bad guys and the good guys (the police!) and flee to a place of safety. Charlie gets help from unexpected places and reassurance that those he loves believe that he isn't guilty of murder. Charlie then begins his quest to seek the real answers. He follows hints that he found in newspaper articles and tracks down those he thinks may have the answers.

This was a fast-paced book that was one adventure right after another. Very enjoyable and sometimes nail-biting. Every young person who loves a good story will enjoy this one (and maybe their parents will too!)