Kathleen Glasgow

From the critically acclaimed author of 'Girl in Pieces' comes a stunning novel that Vanity Fair calls “impossibly moving” and “suffused with light”. In this raw, deeply personal story, a teenaged girl struggles to find herself amidst the fallout of her brother’s addiction in a town ravaged by the opioid crisis.

For all of Emory’s life she’s been told who she is. In town she’s the rich one–the great-great-granddaughter of the mill’s founder. At school she’s hot Maddie Ward’s younger sister. And at home, she’s the good one, her stoner older brother Joey’s babysitter. Everything was turned on its head, though, when she and Joey were in the car accident that killed Candy MontClaire. The car accident that revealed just how bad Joey’s drug habit was.

Four months later, Emmy’s junior year is starting, Joey is home from rehab, and the entire town of Mill Haven is still reeling from the accident. Everyone’s telling Emmy who she is, but so much has changed, how can she be the same person? Or was she ever that person at all?

Mill Haven wants everyone to live one story, but Emmy’s beginning to see that people are more than they appear. Her brother, who might not be “cured,” the popular guy who lives next door, and most of all, many “ghostie” addicts who haunt the edges of the town. People spend so much time telling her who she is–it might be time to decide for herself.

A journey of one sister, one brother, one family, to finally recognize and love each other for who they are, not who they are supposed to be, 'You’d Be Home' Now is Kathleen Glasgow’s glorious and heartbreaking story about the opioid crisis, and how it touches all of us.

You'd Be Home Now

Issi 

Amanda Autumn Berrey

“Nice stuff. I was always happy drawing, when I was a kid.” She looks through the papers, touches the edge of one of Joey’s dragon illustrations. “That kinda got lost in life, you know?”

I imagine him reaching for them right away, in the parking garage, grimacing at his aching fingers, stiff from a night of pumping stomachs, suturing, stapling, staving off pools of blood. It’s what he does: tries to save the messes that get wheeled into his ER. Sew people back into versions of themselves. And then he gets in the car and fills his own lungs with smoke.

Parents don’t make any sense. My dad works to save people, but he can’t even stop smoking. My parents send Joey to rehab, but my mother can’t sleep without a pill.

I keep thinking how much I love you I keep wanting love to be enough Because if it was You’d be home now

Now, as then, I don’t know if I fully understand what happens in the novel, but I loved it anyway. Isn’t that strange? To love something you can’t fully grasp?

(and also, Lolita is completely inappropriate for high school;

Someone I used to know said that’s the problem with adults. They just see kids as they want them to be, what they aren’t, and not as they are.

You'd Be Home Now quotes

Join the club