Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Home Leave: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Home Leave: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Home Leave: A Novel
    Audiobook7 hours

    Home Leave: A Novel

    Written by Brittani Sonnenberg

    Narrated by Leslie Bellair

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Chris Kriegstein is a man on the move, with a global career that catapults his family across North America, Europe, and Asia. For his wife, Elise, the hardship of chronic relocation is soothed by the allure of reinvention. Over the years, Elise shape-shifts: once a secretive Southern Baptist, she finds herself becoming a seasoned expat in Shanghai, an unapologetic adulterer in Thailand, and, finally, a renowned interior decorator in Madison.

    But it's the Kriegstein daughters, Leah and Sophie, who face the most tumult. Fiercely protective of each other--but also fiercely competitive--the two sisters long for stability in an ever-changing environment. With each new move, the girls find they can count on only one thing: the consoling, confounding presence of each other.

    When the family suffers an unimaginable loss, they can't help but wonder: Was it meant to be, or did one decision change their lives forever? And what does it mean when home is everywhere and nowhere at the same time? With humor and heart, Brittani Sonnenberg chases this wildly loveable family through the excitement and anguish of their adventures around the world.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHachette Audio
    Release dateJun 3, 2014
    ISBN9781478953579
    Unavailable
    Home Leave: A Novel

    Related to Home Leave

    Related audiobooks

    Literary Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Great Reads

      Apr 14, 2020

      Simultaneous murders hit LA, Chicago and San Francisco. SFPD Sergeant Lindsay Boxer is tasked with uncovering what links these precise and calculated killings. Lindsay discovers that the victims all excel in lucrative, criminal activity. As the casua

      2 min read

    • Article

      Reviews

      Feb 26, 2021

      The authors share vivid accounts of the birth of the anti-apartheid sports boycott, its impact within South Africa and especially on apartheid’s longevity, and the use of sport as a nation-building tool, from 1994 to Siya Kolisi’s acclaimed captaincy

      1 min read

    • Article

      Best Books

      Mar 1, 2022

      Best Books
      1 min read

    • Article

      Picks Of The Bunch

      Jun 13, 2022

      Picks Of The Bunch
      3 min read

    • Article

      Books

      Apr 10, 2023

      by Sian Norris (Verso, ISBN 9781839764738) versobooks.com You’d be forgiven for thinking that today’s attack on abortion rights is rooted in theological beliefs about when human life begins. Sian Norris, in this timely and chillingly relevant investi

      4 min read

    • Article

      Coming Of Age

      Feb 26, 2023

      Liz (Julia Roberts) has everything a person could want – a great husband, a beautiful home and a successful career – but she’s not happy. Realising she has spent her whole adult life bouncing from relationship to relationship, Liz decides she needs t

      2 min read

    • Article

      Coming Of Age

      Feb 26, 2023

      Liz (Julia Roberts) has everything a person could want – a great husband, a beautiful home and a successful career – but she’s not happy. Realising she has spent her whole adult life bouncing from relationship to relationship, Liz decides she needs t

      2 min read

    • Article

      Thursday, September 15

      Aug 13, 2022

      TWO OF MY COUSINS LIVE in economically depressed southern Italy. Jobs are scarce and corruption is rampant, a painful contrast to the areas physical beauty and warm people. My cousin Desiree lives in a two-bedroom apartment with her husband, two teen

      1 min read

    • Article

      Great Reads

      Aug 13, 2021

      By Stacey June An empowering guide for millennial singles, sharing practical tools and advice on how to relish and revel in the solo life. Stacey June is here to help! With the assistance of a whole slew of experts, a wild variety of romantic and se

      2 min read

    • Article

      Dirty SOUTH

      Jul 5, 2020

      Dirty SOUTH
      3 min read

    • Article

      Summer Book Reviews

      Dec 2, 2022

      by Inga Simpson Published by Hachette Australia ISBN 9780733634550 $32.99 Inga Simpson has outed herself as a cricket tragic. With this new novel, she will endear herself to the many others of her kind who walk among us, particularly those drawn to t

      4 min read

    • Article

      Great Read

      Aug 9, 2023

      Great Read
      2 min read

    • Article

      Finding Humanity In Dangerous Places – A Reporter's Story

      Jun 6, 2019

      If you’ve been a Monitor reader for a while, you are probably aware that spinning through the heart of this organization is the pursuit of stories that find hope and humanity even in seemingly hopeless places – such as war-torn Syria where Dominique

      5 min read

    • Article

      The Conversation

      Sep 18, 2018

      The Conversation
      5 min read

    • Article

      Opinion Letters

      Jun 18, 2021

      A potent view of Palestine from a Jewish perspective Congratulations on publishing the true history of the Nakba (A Jewish case for Palestinian refugee return, 28 May), particularly convincing since written by a Jewish editor. The British are also re

      3 min read

    • Article

      What’s On Netflix?

      Sep 13, 2020

      What’s On Netflix?
      3 min read

    • Article

      Books to Read

      Aug 21, 2020

      diana@ideasfactory.co.za After so many years in professional kitchens, Liam Tomlin wanted a departure from the formal structure of restaurants with reservations, stuffy service and fixed menus that are repeated day after day. At Chefs Warehouse, he h

      5 min read

    • Article

      September’s BOOK CLUB

      Aug 1, 2019

      September’s BOOK CLUB
      2 min read

    • Article

      Book Club

      Oct 12, 2022

      Book Club
      5 min read

    • Article

      Our Book Faves

      Jun 1, 2023

      What surviving on the kindness of strangers taught me about perspective, connection and happiness. Kath Koschel has faced almost unimaginable hurdles. In her mid-twenties, she broke her back and was told she may never walk again. Shortly afterwards,

      1 min read

    • Article

      Counter Culture

      Sep 16, 2021

      Counter Culture
      3 min read

    Reviews for Home Leave

    3.5/5

    19 ratings7 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      Interesting. Lives unspooling across continents. What life is like after a sudden death. This one stayed with me.
    • 3/5
      When I started this book and realized it was being written from the point of view of a house I almost gave up. I stuck with it, and it did get better as the narrators changed. The story was interesting enough - an expat family has trouble dealing with a loss and feeling grounded in light of not having anywhere to call home. This story seemed to be going in a few directions and it never came together for me. It is hard for me to enjoy a book when I can't connect with the characters, and this is what happened with Home Leave.
    • 2/5
      Much as I wanted to like this book about a family who spends much of its time living abroad, I could not make myself like it. From the first chapter, told in the voice of a house(!) to the sad loss that the family experiences, the different voices of the narrative, plus the way the story jumped around in time just turned me off. C- for effort.
    • 3/5
      This book is not what I was expecting. The descriptions of being an expat and how you feel when your spouse leaves on trips for work all the time were really accurate, but ultimately the weird varying narrators (the grandparents, a play, first person, third person, first person plural, a HOUSE) were too much for me and ruined a story I could have really related to. Of course the point of a novel is not to always relate to the story, it's to learn and stretch your boundaries, but I would rather do that through places and characters that have new-to-me experiences than through weird stylistic technique.
    • 4/5
      I received an advance reader’s copy of Home Leave, the debut novel by Brittani Sonnenberg, through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program. Many thanks to LT and to Grand Central Publishing (Hachette Group) for the opportunity to read and review it.Brittani Sonnenberg is a talented writer, and the range of narrative styles in Home Leave illustrates a willingness to be experimental. I looked at the other LT reviews, and a few of them expressed frustration at some of the narrators Sonnenberg used. For me, that was one of the most enjoyable aspects of the book. When I started reading, I couldn’t figure out who was narrating. I re-read the description on the back of the book, looking for some hint. On page three or four, it became clear who it was, and I thought of starting my review with: “You won’t be able to guess the first narrator, so just go with it; you’ll know who it is by page four.” Other reviewers hated that beginning, but I thought it was cool. There are two chapters written as mini-plays, and there’s a chapter near the end of the book written in first person plural. All of these worked fine for me, but they won’t work for everyone.The book opens with two epigraphs; one of these explains, “The purpose of home leave is to ensure that employees who live abroad for an extended period undergo reorientation and re-exposure in the United States on a regular basis.” Chris Kriegstein is from Indiana, and Elise grew up in Mississippi. The young family spends about four years in Atlanta, and two or three in Shanghai, but for sisters Leah and Sophie, “home” is really one another. Sonnenberg paints these two girls, and their relationship, very realistically. Leah sometimes takes care of Sophie, but is just as often annoyed with her. Leah is quiet and bookish, while Sophie is more energetic and adventurous. As Leah becomes a moody teenager, they drift apart somewhat … but not far apart.Readers who prefer “likeable” characters could have problems with Elise. The publisher blurb says that she “shape-shifts,” and one of her identities is “unapologetic adulterer.” When Leah is a baby, Elise often feels trapped by motherhood, and when she learns she is pregnant for a second time, she isn’t happy about it. However, when the girls are a bit older and the family is abroad, Elise often seems like a “normal” mom: she has her quirks and bad moods, but it’s clear that she loves her daughters. Chris is probably the least vivid of the main characters, to me, and yet I did like him a good deal. We learn in the second chapter (which seems to be set the closest to present day) that Chris was a star athlete in his Indiana high school, became a successful businessman who lived in several countries, and is now his company’s CEO. He and Elise are still married and living in Madison, Wisconsin, having made it through her affair, his overseas jobs, their mutual grief.The backdrop of the novel is the panorama of international settings, but at its heart are grief and loss. The family suffers a tragedy, and can’t return to normal. There’s some irony, too, in the title of the book: “home leave” is what Elise and the girls take for a couple of months each summer, while Chris remains in China, but Leaving Home is what Chris and Elise both wanted desperately to do when they were growing up -- and succeeded, spending several years on the other side of the world. Leaving Home is what Leah and Sophie do as well, in very different ways. Sonnenberg weaves a fine tapestry of people, place, time, and loss, that will stay with me for a long time.
    • 5/5
      I enjoyed reading Brittani Sonnenberg’s first novel, Home Leave. I liked the narrator changes throughout the novel including the house that starts the story in Vidalia, Mississippi. The stage is set in the house that describes the characters and some of their formative influences. The center of attention is on Elise and the effects of early abuse by a family member. Instead of this dominating the story, Elise escapes the confining Southern environment and lives an international life with her successful businessman husband, Chris.Elise and Chris and eventually their two daughters, Leah and Sophie, evolve in a number of locations including Germany, China, Thailand, and come to consider themselves “Expats.” It is interesting that exposure to and study of languages and cultures even for a period of years do not guarantee a feeling of belonging in foreign lands. Each member of the family has a sense of not fitting in to the country they are assigned by the work of Chris. This is a common experience of families involved in international business assignments.Home leave is offered once a year for the family to return to the United States for reorientation and re-exposure to their home culture. The problem of feeling like they do not belong and have no reasonable developmental goals in a foreign country is countered by revisiting people and places that led to life decisions in the first place. Once back “home” the remembered environmental context and social interaction give the family members a reason for going on with life. Of course, the life progressing reasoning can be shattered by a tragic loss. Also, it is interesting that Chris often stays on the job and does not return with the family, a common practice of other heads of international business families.I enjoyed the story and the writing style of the author. Most of the narrative is written in a simple and straight forward style. But, there are some interesting sentences at the end of chapters and chapter sections with unexpected word sequences that provoke complex feelings and thoughts. I marked several of those for future reference and enjoyment.
    • 4/5
      The Kriegstein family moves all over the world as the father, Chris, follows his career path. Chris is originally from a farm in Indiana. His wife, Elise, is from a small town in Mississippi. Leah, the elder of their daughters, was born in Germany; Sophie, the younger daughter, was born during one of their stateside periods. When the girls are in their early teens, living in Singapore, the family faces a terrible tragedy, one that will change their lives forever.In this, her debut novel, Brittani Sonnenberg, tells the story of this expatriate family from several points of view. Sometimes the narration is in the first person singular, other times, in a neutral narrator. While the story is not in clear chronological order, it has nice flow that is easy to follow. Although it has some flaws, it is good at conveying the experiences of the various members of this expat family.The major flaw is toward the end of the book when Sonnenberg slips into the editorial, first person plural, “we” in an attempt to equate the experience of this one family with the experience of all expatriate families, especially the children raised in such families. While she makes some valid points, this passage interrupts the narrative in a way that the author’s skillful handling of the non-chronological presentation and the various voices does not. It diminishes the power of the story.Overall, it is an excellent view of the detached life style of American expats and the difficulties in dealing with loss, and the problems faced with returning “home” when you really have no home. A promising debut, I look forward to her next work.