You’d Be Home Now

Sixteen-year-old Emory “Emmy” Ward is the good daughter in her affluent family, but her life changes after a car accident kills her classmate and pushes her brother, Joey, into drug rehab. Shunned by her peers, Emmy becomes more of an outsider than she already was. With no friends to turn to, she feels invisible.

Kathleen Glasgow expertly depicts the story of a family affected by substance abuse from the perspective of a loved one. This was my second book by Glasgow, and like the first, it affected me so much. Though I am lucky to not have personal experience with addiction, You’d Be Home Now fully engrossed me. I was swept up in the pain that Emmy experienced in the grief following her accident. Her struggle to support Joey’s recovery was raw and emotional.

This book also showed Emmy navigating teenage loneliness and the path to finding her true self, and I loved her journey toward finding the courage to assert herself to her parents and peers. This was a lovely, though difficult, story that everyone should read!