When I was in college, I majored in Psychology. I’ve always had a fascination with the brain and how it works, so when I saw this new title out by Julia Keller, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist. I was very excited to read it. In addition to a story about brain injury, Back Home delves into the contemporary issue of the Iraq War and its impact on families — a topic not quite explored in depth just yet.

Rachel knew something was wrong when her mother sat her, her sister and her little brother down on the couch to talk about their dad. Rachel’s mind ran with the inevitable: her dad was dead.

Dad was a member of the National Guard and had been sent to Iraq. Rachel had the suspicion it could end with his being killed, but it turns out that that may have been easier to deal with. Dad hadn’t been killed, but instead, he sustained a major brain injury and lost a leg and an arm.
It would be a few months before dad would come home, as they were treating him at a national army hospital and giving him therapy to try to resume his normal life.
Upon returning, though, things did not go as planned – because of the massive brain injury, Rachel’s dad had many more challenges ahead of him than she and her family were led to believe.

Back Home is an incredibly powerful story about a family coping with the physical effects of war on a family member. Julia Keller has written many articles about brain injury and the Iraq war, and her expertise is clear in this story. This is not a happily-ever-after book, nor does it pretend to be. It’s an utterly realistic, terrifying, and sad look at the lives of those who are unable to resume life as they knew it before going to war. One of the most memorable and poignant moments occurs when Rachel reflects on the term “vegetable” and what it means in relation to a human being — painful but touching.

I felt like Keller had a lot of characters in the story, and while this was problematic to me as a reader to distinguish among these people, I also felt like it was almost necessary: many of those characters played a real ancillary role in Rachel’s life making them simply a cast to her. But moreover, it almost allowed us as outsiders to feel like her father and his understanding of familiar and not. Additionally, I really wanted a little more to the story, but knowing how important this issue is, I’m not disappointed.

A number of reviews I read on this title were quick to judge it as a “message” novel or one useful for bibliotherapy. While I don’t disagree that there’s a message here or that this book will make an excellent one to hand to someone dealing with a similar issue, I think this is short changing the novel and story itself. There’s a nice metaphor throughout the book about building a fort that goes deeper into a story than into a problem, and I believe that Rachel is constructed strongly enough to be a character rather than an idea. I think much of this may stem from this being a new topic in the YA literature realm and because of Keller’s staccato journalistic writing style. I think going into this believing it is only one thing detracts from the greater story.

So few books explore these issues without getting political, but this is one that manages to stay focused on the issue of brain injury. I found the ending particularly touching and realistic, and I am very eager to see what Keller writes next. Her style is very journalistic, so don’t expect a pretty story; it’s the facts.

*Disclosure: I was informed if I gave a good review to a book, I had to disclose if it came from the publisher. I like to think my reviews are critical enough to make it clear that I’m actually reading to review and not reading to get free stuff. Indeed, I’m almost offended I have to disclose that I got an advanced copy of this title because the reality is I read EVERYTHING critically and am not afraid to share my insights.
I would like to thank Edgmont, though, for providing me this fantastic book. I am eager to share this one with my teens who may be experiencing similar things or know others who are.