Like Home by Louisa Onomé (ARC Review)

Title: Like Home
Author: Louisa Onomé
Type: Fiction
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary
Publisher: Delacorte Press (Random House Children’s Books)
Date published: February 23, 2021

A complimentary digital copy of this book was kindly provided by Random House Children’s Books through Books Forward in exchange for an honest review.

Chinelo, or Nelo as her best friend Kate calls her, is all about her neighborhood Ginger East. She loves its chill vibe, ride-or-die sense of community, and the memories she has growing up there with her friends. Ginger East isn’t what it used to be though. After a deadly incident at the local arcade, most of her friends’ families moved away. Kate, whose family owns the local corner store, is still there and as long as that stays constant, Nelo’s good.

When Kate’s parent’s store is vandalized and the vandal still at large, Nelo is shaken to her core. And then the police and the media get involved and more of the outside world descends upon Ginger East with promises to fix the neighborhood. Suddenly, Nelo finds herself in the middle of a drama unfolding on a national scale.

Worse yet, Kate is acting strange. She’s pushing Nelo away at the exact moment they need each other most. Now Nelo’s entire world is morphing into something she hates and she must figure out how to get things back on track or risk losing everything–and everyone–she loves.

⤖ My Review ⬻

When I first heard of Like Home, I’m pretty sure it was mentioned that the book is set in Toronto and I was so so excited! I live about an hour outside of Toronto and would visit a number of times a year for blogger events, birthdays, and to explore places and foods that don’t exist in my town. If it wasn’t obvious, I was quite excited to read about one of my favourite cities.

Now, having, read the book I realized that going into Like Home, I had forgotten that visiting a place (no matter how often) is not the same as living there. The way that I experience Toronto is not the same as someone who lives there. There are so many neighbourhoods too–each one unique–and I got to spend a little bit of time experiencing such a unique neighbourhood through the eyes of a group of young adults living there.

I will say that I did struggle with Like Home a bit though. Part of it was the pacing and the storylines outside of the mystery storyline. I wasn’t that interested in those other plots, which I think has to do with my age and my interests having changed. I believe that the other issue has to do with my age as well (and don’t laugh!) because I really struggled to follow some of the dialogue because some of the colloquial language being used was unfamiliar to me. Yes. Okay. I feel very old.

I do not blame the above issues that I had on the author! Also, when it comes to pacing, once I made it a little past the halfway point, something happened that piqued my interest, and I flew through the rest of the book. I also wanted to add that I found some of the writing and turns of phrase to be quite lovely and/or evocative! Like Home was different than anything else that I’ve read before, and I can definitely appreciate its uniqueness. I’m also curious to see what Onomé will write next!

⤖ About the Author ⬻

Louisa Onomé is a writer of books for teens. She holds a BA in professional writing from York University and is represented by Claire Friedman at InkWell Management. A part of the Author Mentor Match round 3 cohort, she is also a writing mentor and all-around cheerleader for diverse works and writers. When she is not writing, her hobbies