Feels Like Home

I was thinking about The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton the other day, so I was really surprised to find the book Feels Like Home by e.E. Charlton-Trujillo. In this book the main character Mickey loves the book The Outsiders. It was something she shared with her older brother Danny before he went away. Danny was 6 years older than Mickey, but he always took care of her. He made sure that she had a front-row seat at all his football games and he never left her alone. Danny was the town hero his senior year when he helped bring home the first State Football championship in decades. But then tragedy struck and Danny was blamed and he left town in shame.

Feels Like Home starts 6 years after the tragedy. Mickey is now 15-years-old and her father has died. Danny returns home for the funeral even though Mickey has not heard from him for 5 years. Mickey has not forgiven him for leaving and she does not want him to be part of her life now. She is struggling to get past the grief and to deal with her brother’s return. To add to her struggles, her best friend Christina, whose mother would like her not to be friends with a “gringa,” tells her that Ricky Martinez, the new football star in town, likes her. This book does a great job showing the small Texas town’s obsession with football and racial and social conflicts. Plus it is just a really good story about the complexities of being a family.