Ellen and Sam Flanagan are getting a divorce. Sam is an inventer, and his latest invention emptied their bank account, they are losing their home, and Ellen has had enough and calls it quits on her marriage. Ellen and her two young daughters are devastated at the thought of moving out of their house in 2 weeks. It has been sold to a couple who have issues of their own. So rather than let someone move into her house, Ellen, a successful and intelligent businesswoman and mother, decides to burn it down. It just gets more ridiculous from that point, and the inconsistencies pile up and also the unbelievable coincidences. Hopefully, this author will have more success next time around. ( )

Light read, but fast paced and good writing. When family has $$ problems, woman wants to keep her home no matter what. Takes her awhile to figure out what a home really is, but interesting ride watching her get there. ( )

House & Home is McCleary’s first novel. She is a journalist with articles appearing in The New York Times, Good Housekeeping, More, and Health, and on HGTV.com. Overall, it’s a fabulous first book with real, palpable emotions and characters that you can recognize in your own life. My only complaint about the book is that some of the dialogue seemed a bit stinted and forced, and I often found myself wondering if a person would really say something like that.

Click for my full review: http://thekoolaidmom.wordpress.com/2008/09/26/house-home-by-kathleen-mccleary/ ( )

House and Home by Kathleen McCleary is a warm and inviting read. It's one of those books you want when it's snowing outside and you have nothing to do but curl up in front of the fireplace and read a book - at least, that's how it makes you feel on the inside. The book is comfortable, easy to read, and very enjoyable.

Ellen's antics to try and keep her house are amusing, but her desperation at the idea of losing her house is more difficult to deal with. Ellen feels as though her world is collapsing, but it is the loss of her home, rather than the breakup of her marriage, that she finds devastating. It is clear that she is using her home as an avenue through which to express all her grief, but she continues to desperately cling onto her home even after this realization. This is the one part of the book I had some trouble with. While a house is incredibly important to me, the people in it, rather than the things that make it up, are what makes it a home. I could definitely imagine myself joking around with friends about doing something drastic to make sure no one else but me could be in my home, but I couldn't imagine actually taking the steps to burn down my own house just so someone else wouldn't live there!

That being said, House and Home is still a very enjoyable book. The characters are endearing and it really does feel like home. The descriptions of Ellen's decorating is warm and inviting, and I'd love to visit her coffee shop, Coffee@Home! McCleary has depicted a wonderful story that has a lot of heart. Anyone who has had to move away from a beloved home in the past will find something to enjoy in House and Home.

From S. Krishna's Books ( )

Personally, I really enjoyed this book. At first I was uncertain as to whether I'd like it because it sounded a little far-fetched to me. I also got the feeling I wasn't going to like Ellen because, from the description, she seemed like an impetuous child - burning down her house because somebody else had bought it outright? Puh-lease! BUT I loved this book. I got through it quickly and what I found was that, despite the cover's description, the book was about much more than Ellen and her house.

House & Home is about learning to distinguish between what makes a house and what makes a home. The two words conjure up very different meanings in my mind, and I was glad that Ellen was finally able to see that what made her house a happy place was not necessarily the things that filled it, but the people.

I thought the characters in this book were really well developed and I loved every one of them. Sam was one of my favorites, despite his flaws (probably because he reminds me so much of my own beau). Some of Ellen's complaints about him really caught me off guard because I have had so many of those complaints myself.

I also found that I really connected with Ellen on a different level, in that she reminded me of my own mother in some of the passages. As a child I moved often, and I have to say I reacted much like her children. I threw huge tantrums every time we moved and would hold it against my parents for months afterward. Here is one passage that I highlighted in the text:

"And then Ellen simply refusted to move again. After years of putting off having children, and working endless hours to get her decorating business up and running in one town after another, she was done. She wanted to buy a house and paint the walls red, not some neutral rental color. She watned to get pregnant and have babies. She wanted to plant bulbs and know she'd be there in the spring to watch them bloom. She wanted to make friends and reminisce over shared memories that went back more than twelve months."

I think this one passage so encapsulates that desire, after years of moving, to stay put, to have some roots. I know I've felt this way as recently as March when I moved back to Sacramento from Paris. I absolutely had every intention of settling down here, finally. And I still dream of owning my own house and knowing it will be a place I can always come back to.

This book was very relatable in many ways. It's more than a story of a house - it's the story of a family. I really want that to come across in my review because I feel that some people may avoid this book as I did at first, thinking it was too far-fetched. ( )