Kristin's Bookshelf

No Place Like Home
By Brianna North |
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This book definitely takes you on a wild ride where you can’t tell left from right or up from down.

There is a lot going on here: stalkery neighbors, hidden letters, sex trafficking rings, dark secrets, and homeownership basically being the worst thing that can happen to a person.

That said, my personal homeowner trauma has involved leaking appliances and surprise expenses… not jars of teeth. 😳

Wren’s path to figuring out the truth is chaotic in the most stress-inducing way possible. Sis accuses basically everybody at some point and honestly? I couldn’t even blame her.

Tiny spoiler without details: you can only have so many similar names in one book before I start yelling “RED HERRING” at my Kindle. But to be fair, it absolutely kept me guessing.

One thing I did appreciate was the discussion surrounding trafficking and the complicated emotional reality for survivors. A few years ago I learned (not surprisingly) that where I live in Las Vegas has one of the highest per capita rates of sex trafficking in the U.S., and it’s also (more surprisingly) a major issue in parts of Canada – where the book takes place. Specifically Ontario, Quebec, and Alberta.

Books like this remind you that from the outside it’s easy to ask, “Why didn’t they leave? Why didn’t they go to the police?” but trauma, fear, manipulation, survival, and loyalty are incredibly complicated things. Many of the women in this story have endured unimaginable horrors, and I appreciated that the book didn’t oversimplify that reality.

Thank you to the author for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.