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    Home Safe: A Novel
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    Home Safe: A Novel
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    Home Safe: A Novel
    Audiobook8 hours

    Home Safe: A Novel

    Published by Penguin Random House Audio

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    In this new novel, beloved bestselling author Elizabeth Berg weaves a beautifully written and richly resonant story of a mother and daughter in emotional transit. Helen Ames-recently widowed, coping with loss and grief, unable to do the work that has always sustained her-is beginning to depend far too much on her twenty-seven-year-old daughter, Tessa, and is meddling in her life, offering unsolicited and unwelcome advice. Helen's problems are compounded by her shocking discovery that her mild-mannered and loyal husband was apparently leading a double life. The Ameses had painstakingly saved for a happy retirement, but that money disappeared in several large withdrawals made by Helen's husband before he died. In order to support herself and garner a measure of much needed independence, Helen takes an unusual job that ends up offering far more than she had anticipated. And then a phone call from a stranger sets Helen on a surprising path of discovery that causes both mother and daughter to reassess what they thought they knew about each other, themselves, and what really makes a home and a family.


    From the Hardcover edition.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateApr 28, 2009
    ISBN9780739331897
    Unavailable
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    Reviews for Home Safe

    3.5/5

    363 ratings48 reviews

    What did you think?

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      The death of Dan, Helen's husband, has left her unable to write or cope with general living. As she's trying to get her feet under her, she discovers a shocking detail regarding their joint bank account. Dan had withdrawn a substantial amount several months prior to his death.This was a gentle, light book. I appreciate it for its calm nature, but I need a little more action and/or friction. There were some moments that produced a grin, nod or a sense of sympathy, but nothing too powerful. All in all, it was a pleasant read.Originally posted on: Thoughts of Joy
    • 4/5
      I thought this book about love, loss and healing was really well done. You can see the main character struggle and flounder and ultimately come around to a kind of self acceptance and peace. Her confusion and panic attacks felt real as well as her hope at the end. It left me feeling satisfied and content.
    • 3/5
      One of my favorite authors, but not one of my favorite books. A woman struggles to come to terms with her life after her husband's death! Even though it's not one of my faves, i love books about writers and Elizabeth Berg's writing always leaves one feeling uplifted and inspired. She always has such insight into life and what it's all about!
    • 5/5
      Absolutely wonderful.
    • 4/5
      Helen is trying to figure out who she is in the aftermath of her husband's death. The journey from numbing grief to rediscovering life is made more interesting by the element of writing - Helen's inability to write, her joy in teaching others to do so, her willingness to find other aspects of who she is apart from the writing she can't do.
    • 1/5
      CONTAINS SPOILERSThe story of a whining, self-indulgent widow.I really did not like the main character, whose greatest struggle is trying to decide what to do with the $850,000 custom-built home her husband had built for her. Other challenging events in her life: trying to separate herself from her adult daughter, will she fall in love with the handsome widower she has just met, how to teach a class of students learning to write, what will be the focus of her next book.Really?Nothing about this I liked.
    • 5/5
      After the death of her beloved husband, Helen Ames and her adult daughter, Teresa, struggle to cope with the grief, However, Helen is dismayed to learn that her husband may not have been the honest man she thought he was. Upon investigating, Helen notices that large withdrawals were made from his savings account just prior to his death. Meanwhile, Tessa grapples with the difficulties of finding love.
    • 4/5
      Beautifully written novel about motherhood, life, and life after death. I hated to put it down, and I will certainly find another novel of Berg's!!
    • 4/5
      Helen looses a husband and in the process her sense of self. The book chronicles her recovery. I found myself angry and impatient with her at various points which seems to me a good sign, that the character was believable.
    • 2/5
      I did not enjoy the main character, Helen. I prefer stronger women characters. The story was OK to listen to while sewing but I won't remember it.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      A stumped writers journey of finding her place in her family after suddenly losing her husband. She is overbearing, lonely, judgemental, feels helpless yet interfering.
    • 4/5
      Easy read. Good book. I liked the primary character Helen and found myself identifying with her as she navigated through day-to-day life. About love & loss, about letting go, about appreciation for all the big and great and wonderful things in our lives, and all the little things.
    • 5/5
      It's been a while since I read a book that really made me think. Absolutely fantastic book. Read the whole thing in one afternoon.
    • 2/5
      I love this author, and parts of the story were great, but other parts really dragged for me.
    • 3/5
      This gentle novel is a slice of life of a newly widowed woman and her grown daughter. When Dan dies suddenly, Helen discovers she didn’t know her husband as well as she thought she did. Facing a new life only when she is forced to stand on her own two feet, Helen is at once devastated and challenged. While not a lot happens in this novel, Helen does grow independent as she realizes she must depend on herself to make a living, manage her money, and take care of all of life’s problems. While she does have a capable daughter to lean on and friends to consult with, in the end, it is all up to her.
    • 3/5
      One of my favorite authors, but not one of my favorite books. A woman struggles to come to terms with her life after her husband's death! Even though it's not one of my faves, i love books about writers and Elizabeth Berg's writing always leaves one feeling uplifted and inspired. She always has such insight into life and what it's all about!
    • 4/5
      I continue to love Elizabeth Berg.
    • 3/5
      Are there really women who are my mom's age who don't know where the checkbook is or how much money is in the bank? Are there husbands who actually think it's a good idea to take all of the savings and build a house without their wife's knowledge? Am I going to have to wade through ridiculous literary references to September 11 for the rest of my life?
    • 3/5
      I did like this book as I related to the main character in the way that she had become dependent on her husband and daughter to deal with the DIY side of life and I enjoyed the relationship that she had with her daughter. It was good to read a book about a woman who doesn't let people walk over her as that's all I appear to be reading about lately and it's very frustrating!
    • 2/5
      Did not finish this book. Didn't like spending time with someone who was so unclear about her own desires.
    • 4/5
      This story centers on a recently widowed mother and her relationship with her daughter. The mother is a writer who has been unable to get back into writing, but ends up teaching a writing class to non-writers. Her interaction with her students and the work that they are producing is a beautiful part of the book.
    • 4/5
      I've been reading a lot of particularly fine novels lately by women authors, with female lead characters who are forced to grow in uncomfortable and unexpected ways when their lives are suddenly upheaved. This is one such book, about Helen Ames, a recently widowed novelist who finds herself frozen in life after her husband's death, unable to write anymore, and too dependent on her adult daughter for the simplest of life's tasks, which her husband had always performed. Her world is further shattered by the discovery that before his death, her husband withdrew most of their life savings for an unknown purpose. When she does discover what his intentions were, she is forced to weave this knowledge into the fabric of the new life she is attempting to create for herself. A very good book with a satisfying and realistic conclusion.
    • 4/5
      There were so many things that I liked about this book. The author's voice as the reader really brought the story home to me and made it seem more personal. I felt for Helen as she dealt with her husband's death and her dependence on him, the loss of her father, and the letting go of her only daughter. This was not just "another woman finds her independence and learns to stand on her own" story. And yet, I did not completely agree with all of the conclusions that she came to at the end of the book. Helen's was still the story of a woman without any lasting hope outside of herself. But, I still appreciated the style, tone and voice that Elizabeth Berg offered in this novel. I have read two of her other books and will try another one in the future.
    • 2/5
      This book seemed unbelievable and the story seemed to drag on.
    • 5/5
      One of Berg's best. Her reading of her own work adds enormously to the novel.
    • 5/5
      widow dependant on daughter- husband used saving to build perfect house
    • 5/5
      I am shocked at all the bad reviews of this book, since I loved this book by Elizabeth Berg. I found the details about Helen's class and writing wonderful, and though the plot was not completely unpredictable, I still enjoyed her writing and the characters. I loved it, and this is my second Berg book of which will definitely not be my last.
    • 3/5
      I love Elizabeth Berg's books but this one I couldn't finish. Obviously it was my least favorite.
    • 2/5
      I don't like hanging out with helpless people in real life. Turns out that I don't like hanging out with them in novels, either.
    • 2/5
      I've read a couple of Elizabeth Berg's novels, and was looking forward to this one, not the least reason being the gorgeous cover.I didn't love it. I barely liked it. The premise is good, amazing, even. Helen, an author, has found with the sudden death of her husband almost a year ago, that her life has spun out of control. Of the painful new realities in her life, possibly the most painful is the realization that she can no longer write. It's even more painful because she has found that the quite comfortable nest egg that she thought was in place was reduced substantially before her husband's death by his mysterious withdrawals. In the meantime, her daughter and her best friend, after a year of providing Helen with comforting compassion and help, are losing patience with her, and her parents are aging and facing illness.The parts were great, it was just the sum of them that didn't work for me. Helen, unable and unwilling to learn the basics of home and financial management, flails in despair for most of the book. The ignoring the financial statements and plumbing issues? I can relate, perhaps more so than I'd care to admit. It's the inability to change a light bulb and the action taken when the plumbing issue finally must be faced which bothers me. I find it impossible to believe that a successful, prolific writer would have her daughter drive 45 minutes to change a bulb and to take the action she takes when she thinks her pipes burst. Her paralysis, and its eventual resolution are certainly central to the plot, they are just stretched beyond credulity.Tessa, her daughter, suffers similar indignity here. She has been her mother's support and the object of her obsession in the year since her father's death, and she is naturally straining against that role here. But she seems irrationally angry, hyperbolically so. Her "Mom. Mom." became annoying after about its third use, and the "Mom. Mom. Mom." did so from jump. It was better suited for an adolescent. Again, the idea was good, its expression was not.Helen receives sage words of wisdom from her mother and best friend Midge in several blocks that slowly help her work through her issues. And her writing class was good, although again, exaggerated. One of the students is allowed to read first in the end - of - class program, because she's been known to let her impatience cause her to make a scene backstage when she has to wait. I remember nothing of this character being written as developmentally disabled, which would be the only excuse for writing an adult character that immature. Helen's dithering once she finds the reason for the financial loss is frustrating, takes up a chunk of the plot, and is resolved with barely a sentence.Though this one was disappointing, I still have Berg's works on my to - read list. I just hope they are more along the lines of Durable Goods rather than this one.