I Carried You Home

A single mother of two teenage boys locks herself away in grief over her son's death in a car accident and shuts down in searing pain, refusing to see her remaining son, Ashe. In one stroke, Ashe has lost both his brother and his mother. Eventually, she leaves her bedroom and takes Ashe on a harrowing journey through Death Valley, where he learns about her troubled past and, in the process, tries to come to terms with her. This is a confident and haunting novel told from the point of view of a fourteen-year-old boy, a voice that engages us powerfully and compels us to find out how he can possibly make sense of the terrible loss that has shattered his world and turned his mother against herself. I Carried You Home is an emotionally complex and satisfying first novel about coming of age through the experience of loss and a redemptive return to life.