Reviews for A way from home

The average rating for A way from home based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2009-02-28 00:00:00 Peter Barrows I liked this better than "The Hills at Home"--the story was more coherent--yet I still could not bring myself to like these people. I don't think the author meant them to be The Ugly Americans, but even in America they seemed like spoiled brats, deaf to any view of the world that did not radiate from themselves. Their self-absorbed obliviousness is only intensified by this book's foreign locales. Becky was more likable as a repressed and proper society matron, but even then it was hard to see her inspiring such adoration from two men. Alden is still immature, shallow, and irritating in a George W. Bush sort of way, and I found his service in Vietnam hard to believe; William continues to have no admirable qualities at all. While I can understand Becky's desire to escape her life as a good girl, the attraction of William and a totally isolated, useless, and senseless existence as a solution does not fit her character. And Alden's inablility to cope on his own makes sense, but arouses impatience rather than sympathy. Only Little Becky/Julie/Juliet emerges in a human way. To survive the parenting of her life in Prague at all shows more depth than either of her parents would ever have seemed to possess.

Review # 2 was written on 2008-01-23 00:00:00 Jason Williams Sequel to "The Hills at Home", which follows Alden, Becky, little Becky and William to Prague and Libya. A little disjointed, but I enjoy Clark's dead-pan, arch observations. Introducing a Czech diplomatic funtionary: "And as for Svatopluk, what sort of name was Svatopluk? Alden wondered. Was it the equivalent of having an assistant named Jethro or Clem, or Julian or Byron, or Bill or Bob? Ought he to speak of Svatopluk naturally or with a voice freighted with irony? Was a Svatopluk, in the language of the Ministry, to be listed among one's assets?" Later, Alden's visiting sister Ginger calls him "Sputnik".