Long Journey Home

By Amber Esplin

Author: ?+ Amber Esplin Description:

Bridget McKenna has had her future mapped out ever since she was small. But when Bridget's mother dies in a car accident, her careful plans get derailed. Bridget must move across the country to live with a father she hasn't seen since her parents divorced years before. As she leaves behind the life she once knew, Bridget holds onto a single hope: make it through her senior year and then return home. Getting through the year, however, may not be so simple. Bridget uncovers secrets from the past that threaten to steer her toward an uncertain future.

Product Details: Format: Paperback Print: Black & White Size: 5.5x8.5 Page Count: 273 ISBN: 9781555179281 Imprint: Bonneville Books Office Use: 1M836

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1555179282
• ISBN13: 9781555179281
• Release Date: August 2006
• Publisher: Bonneville
• Length: 273 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.4" x 8.5"
• Age Range: 11 years and up

Customer Reviews

A balm to both mind and soul

Amber Esplin's first novel, "Leaving Eden", received an Honorary Mention from the Association for Mormon Letters in 2004. Her second novel, "The Long Journey Home", while not a sequel per se, builds upon several of the themes in "Leaving Eden". It is an encore performance worthy of the name and is certain to receive similar accolades. Soon after the untimely death of her mother due to an auto accident, Bridget McKenna accepts the offer of a kindly couple who are acquaintances of her best friend in San Francisco to drive her across the country to upstate New York, where her father and sisters live. During the trip, Bridget silently repeats her guide to life which was heavily influenced by her late mother, an award-winning children's novelist: "Never let anyone see you out of your comfort zone, even if you live out of it." Bridget also takes to heart additional sensible counsel by her mother to include always applying lipstick before leaving the house, never using one-ply toilet paper, never dating someone who has longer hair or more earrings than she herself has, and never wearing polyester underwear. It is the soundness of this first rule about comfort zones, however, around which much of "Long Journey Home" revolves. Bridget arrives in Phrygia, New York, with a hopeful and mature, albeit cautious, attitude and luggage in tow, ready to live with a father and sisters whom she literally cannot remember and has not spoken with or heard from in the ten years since her parents divorced. After all, she reasons, her stay on the East Coast will be only for her senior year of high school. Then she will return home to her friends in California and attend college at Stanford. On her second day in Phrygia she even happily discovers that her father is a lawyer - the very profession to which Bridget aspires! Within the same breath, Bridget learns that one of her sisters wants to become a writer - just like their mother. The illusion of a tolerable life in Phrygia quickly wears off, however, with new rules and new expectations. Bridget acutely feels both the spoken and unspoken rejection of certain members of her family. For example, her sister practically shuns Bridget for not having attended church services while living with her mother and derisively labels her as "inactive." To this epithetic sentence fragment, Bridget in turn mockingly and truthfully exclaims: "What am I, a volcano? What is 'inactive' supposed to mean?" The author's veiled sarcastic humor, mingled with a gentle (or perhaps stern) rebuke, vividly points out the foolish naiveté and self-righteousness in all of us who slander the innocent without thought or mercy. In "Long Journey Home", Amber Esplin compassionately addresses Bridget's plea of "Who am I?" and other humbling and terrifying questions, including: "Do I belong?" and "Does anyone love me?" Through trial and error, Bridget begins to discover previously hidden joys, yearnings, and talents. For their part, the rest of her fam