Home Body

Product Information

Orson Scott Card is the author of the novels Ender's Game, Ender's Shadow, and Speaker for the Dead, which are widely read by adults and younger readers, and are increasingly used in schools. I am a huge fan of Joana Gaines' design aesthetic/philosophy. I have followed Joana and Chip's show 'Fixer Upper' over the years and always came away with something that I truly liked. I don't prescribe to all her looks and 'distressed' being one of them, but how she approaches a space based on her clients personalities and what 'season of life' they are in, shows me the thought and care that goes into the overall design and finished product. Of course, he doesn't want to tear it down. This was how he made his living. But the more he does to the house, the weirder his life gets. Things happen that force him to confront his past; a lost daughter and ex-wife. His past intertwine's with Sylvie's past, both of them having lost things. And while he's repairing the house, things go missing, and the house gets stronger...

Card was born in Washington and grew up in California, Arizona, and Utah. He served a mission for the LDS Church in Brazil in the early 1970s. Besides his writing, he teaches occasional classes and workshops and directs plays. He recently began a long-term position as a professor of writing and literature at Southern Virginia University. I did enjoy the long stories in Homebody...as someone who is darker skinned, it makes me feel that people from other nationalities can also relate to some of the pain that comes with being a darker skin in America.This plot-twisting ghost story is everything you want it to be without rehashing the too-familiar. Orson Scott Card and his innovative story-telling draw you in and hold you until the last possible second. From a care-worn protagonist who won't give up to an old magician living next door, the characters are complex, emotion-worthy, and real. From a beloved and bestselling master of speculative fiction comes this chilling tale of a soulful loner who must overcome demons from his past -- and the demons he unwittingly unleashes -- when he starts renovating a faded Southern mansion. As Homebody eloquently proves, no contemporary writer outshines Orson Scott Card in crafting unlikely heroes or in suffusing the everyday world with an otherworldly glow. The most hard-hitting, liberating read for me is the first section which actually made me come out of my comfort zone of thinking and believing in what we women ought to believe.

Summary: A great design book for beginners, without much specific advice, but with pictures arranged to help you figure out your own style. It was interesting to read her take on a trans-inclusive feminism. As she is often so fixated on her womb and the "female energy" that comes out of it, I have thought many times that she excludes trans women by doing so. Maybe if she had written more than 3 words regarding this topic, her views would have been more clear to me. I found the book to be more inspirational than informative — there are descriptions of different styles, lots of photographs and drawings, and some general advice about the design of different rooms (such as Entryways, Kitchens, Bedrooms, Bathrooms, etc.). Mostly Joanna wants to inspire her readers to create a cozy home in their own style, and there are some short and sweet introductory words to each type of room. Recommended for fellow Jojo fans. Everything she wrote is way too general. There is more to dive into, there has to be. Instead of her writing about how she wants to be in the present over and over, how about describing the present around her. How does she wake up? What surrounds her home? What's inside her home? What does she do to relax or when she's alone? I think people need to stop describing themselves like warriors and survivors and definitely stop making themselves victims and instead open up. Tell me who you are. All I know about Rupi is that she is a woman of color, but you can just google search her for that. Everything is so vague. There's nothing deep here. I wanted to think that as a poet she will develop and become a better writer. Unfortunately, I think she is regressing, because this is the same stuff she has been selling. Besides the setting, I enjoyed the set-up: Don, a lonely former contractor, having lost his family and most of his savings to a legal battle followed by a tragic accident, takes solace in renovating abandoned houses. The house he chooses is a once-magnificent mansion that has since been cut up into student apartments and finally abandoned all together. As I have dedicated a fair amount of time to fixing up my very old house, I enjoyed the loving descriptions of the house and its construction, as well as Don's renovation work. Since this is an Orson Scott Card book, there is something a bit strange and otherworldly about the house, and soon enough that becomes the focus of the story.

I find the writing thoroughly genuine and refreshing. I appreciate it more when the author expressed her concern over the unrealistic expectations to write more so that her work would bring her 'more' of what others believe would bring. Gaines provides good information for creating spaces. She also provides suggestions in case you don't want to remodel a whole room / house for small projects that you can do to, i.e. increase lighting in your kitchen, etc. TRANSPARENCY....i feel that rating poetry is a very touchy line to run your finger across. The art doesn't judge itself, people judge the art. So with that being said I believe Homebody deserves a five star rating. Rupi Kaur just wrote another book that reflects her own unique experience in life. For that she did great expressing herself...I can now note what I did or didn't like about this collection. If reading such lines still make us feel uncomfortable then I feel we still have a long way to go. I feel we need to express ourselves and it's our right to celebrate our bodies and our thoughts which others are so ready to judge and demean. This is a lovely book about home design from Joanna Gaines. Thanks to HGTV and Hulu, I've recently become obsessed with the show Fixer Upper, and I was excited to flip through this big book and hear more from Joanna.

Homebody has a lot of art illustrated by Rupi. That alone always magnetizes me to read her books. To me, some of her illustrations are slightly child like...but for some reason I enjoy them and the creativity behind them. I don't think as many illustrations existed in Homebody like the last 2 books Rupi has written. Regardless, they are very nice to look at. Though I think young women would benefit the most from Rupi's words, I recommend this book to anyone struggling with issues of self worth or past abuse. Home Body would make a wonderful gift for young women on your list, especially those who are struggling to overcome abuse or sexual assault, or simply struggling to find, to love, and to accept themselves in a world that consistently places unrealistic demands upon young women. A world that determines her value by how much she produces or what she can offer to a man. The writing. Mind. Heart. Rest. Awake. Those are the four segments in this collection of poetry. Each offers an honest look at some key moments in her (and our) life that ultimately helped shape the woman she has become. Some poems will make you a little uncomfortable, some will force you to take a closer look at yourself and others will make you smile. But there will never not be one moment when you don't feel.. something.I love the sage, if not novel, design advice to tell your story within your home, filling it with things you love ("creating spaces you never want to leave"), rather than adhering to a certain style or guidelines; I didn't love that, even though there are some helpful tips and takeaways here and there, it isn't particularly helpful or insightful overall as a "guide," in my opinion. I love that most of the twenty-two "case study" homes, introduced at the beginning of the book, are a blend of the six foundational styles (farmhouse, modern, rustic, industrial, traditional, boho); I didn't love that the book is then organized room by room, so it isn't easy to follow which home is which or to really get a good feel for each home as a whole. As always, I love her poetry when it brings up issues about mental health, relationships and women. But what I loved more about this collection was the way how the issues of productivity, writing, immigrants and a bit of politics were brought up. What I didn't like: I didn't love Cindy's character, but I felt sympathy for her. Other than that, I can't remember if anything really bothered me. Besides these and other science fiction novels, Card writes contemporary fantasy ( Magic Street, Enchantment, Lost Boys), biblical novels ( Stone Tables, Rachel and Leah), the American frontier fantasy series The Tales of Alvin Maker (beginning with Seventh Son), poetry ( An Open Book), and many plays and scripts.