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The Homemade God
By Rachel Joyce
The Dial Press, July 2025, 336pp.

The Short of It:

Complex families always hold my attention.

The Rest of It:

There is a heatwave across Europe, and four siblings have gathered at their family’s lake house to seek answers about their father, a famous artist, who recently remarried a much younger woman and decamped to Italy to finish his long-awaited masterpiece.

Now he is dead. And there is no sign of his final painting. ~ the publisher

Rachel Joyce. I’ve enjoyed every book she’s ever written and this one was no exception. The story unfurled. I like that word. It started off kind of funny and silly and then got real serious.

These siblings believe that their father has lost his mind. Marrying a woman much younger, losing weight, being even more eccentric that usual, which is saying a lot. And what about his last big painting? His work of art that he keeps bellowing about? Where is it? What’s happened to it?

The new love interest calls all the shots. No wedding. Siblings not included. They just head to the family lake house in Italy and the siblings decide it’s time to meet this new woman. I mean, she is their stepmother after all.

This is where the story gets interesting because this woman who has taken over their father’s life, doesn’t seem to be all that bad. As the siblings get to know her, all in different ways, they begin to question her motives and frankly his. But then he’s found dead.

At the house, the siblings all have their own theories as to what happened. There’s no way their father drowned in a lake that he literally grew up on. He was a fine swimmer. What gives?

This story is built on sibling interaction. They agree, they disagree, they argue over motive and all the logistical stuff like the house, the remains, the investigation. But Netta, the eldest, is convinced that her father was murdered. So much so that they all just throw up their hands and become even more divided.

This is not a predictable story. I want to say that upfront. Many times I thought I knew where the story was going and then was pleasantly re-directed. I really enjoyed this story and this family. If you like Joyce’s writing, you will enjoy this new one as well.

Recommend.

Source: Review copy provided by the publisher.
Disclosure: This post contains Bookshop.org affiliate links.

Red Pill
By Hari Kunzru
Vintage, 2021, 304pp.

The Short of It:

Kind of a mind trip.

The Rest of It:

“After receiving a prestigious writing fellowship in Germany, the narrator of Red Pill arrives in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee and struggles to accomplish anything at all. Instead of working on the book he has proposed to write, he takes long walks and binge-watches Blue Lives,a violent cop show that becomes weirdly compelling in its bleak, Darwinian view of life. He soon begins to wonder if his writing has any value at all.” ~ from the publisher

I am not going to mince words, Red Pill was really hard to get into. It meandered and seemed somewhat dreamlike, to me. Our protagonist is, in my opinion, living the dream getting to do what he supposedly loves, writing, but he’s unfocused and unmotivated and on the verge of going astray.

Relegated to an open office concept to do his work in, he finds himself completely unable to write anything. So, he wanders. Past grave sites, believing that happiness cannot be found on earth. He meets Anton. A very eccentric guy and also the creator of Blue Lives, the violent show that our narrator is obsessed with. After a night of drinking and going from one place to another, our narrator is convinced that Anton is red-pilling his viewers to brainwash them with his alt-right views.

Reality? Fabricated? As I reader, I am not quite sure but our narrator loses his mind. Or maybe his mind was gone all along?

This book came out in 2021 but there are a few passages that I screenshot because they speak directly to those of us concerned about a select few reaping the benefits of what should belong to many.

Paragraph from Red Pill talking about the elite.

The times we are living in now, most definitely benefit the HAVES, not the have nots. Every now and then, as I was cruising along in this book, a truth bomb would drop and I’d be like, oh… yeah. Wow. Red Pill is that type of read. It’s not “in your face”, much more subtle. You will have to dig a little to find meaning.

Did I like it? Honestly, at 60% in I decided to let it go. I wasn’t enjoying it but since it’s a book club pick, I pushed through and then it began to pique my interest. So no, I didn’t love it but as a discussion book, there is plenty to discuss.

Source: Borrowed
Disclosure: This post contains Bookshop.org affiliate links.

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