Finding Home

I’ll admit, I rolled my eyes at the premise initially—another woman ‘finding herself’ in her hometown? But *Finding Home* subverted my expectations within the first hour. Anna Sullivan is a fantastic anti-heroine: selfish in ways that feel earned, funny without trying, and so stubbornly independent that her vulnerability lands like a gut punch. Swank’s writing shines in the small moments, like Anna’s visceral reaction to her sister’s perfectly curated Instagram life, or the way she catalogs the sounds of Bluebird (the “clink of lobster traps at dawn,” the “whine of a screen door that hasn’t been oiled in 30 years”) as if they’re foreign artifacts. Karissa Vacker’s performance is *almost* flawless. Her Anna is a masterclass in restrained emotion—listen to how she delivers the line, *“I don’t do roots. Roots are for people who’ve never seen the aurora borealis from a dog sled,”* with just the right mix of defiance and exhaustion. My only critique? The male voices occasionally veer into cartoonish territory (Anna’s love interest sounds like a gruff lumberjack parody at times), and the pacing drags slightly in the middle when the plot leans too hard on Bluebird’s quirky-town tropes. But the final act—particularly a heartbreaking scene where Anna sorts through her late father’s tools—more than makes up for it. This isn’t a book about grand gestures; it’s about the quiet terror of realizing you might want something as ordinary as a place to belong. If you’ve ever lied to yourself about being ‘happy alone,’ Anna’s story will haunt you (in the best way).