Review of Color of Home by Rich Marcello

The Color of Home by Rich Marcello

★★★½

Genre: Contemporary, Realistic Fiction, Romance

Synopsis: 

Can two people stay connected for a lifetime and each know the complete truth about the other? When New Yorker Nick Satterborn falls in love with Sassa Vikander, he's convinced the answer is yes. Nick Satterborn. Songwriter. Dabbler on the spiritual path. Survivor.

Sassa Vikander. Stunning chef. Seeker on the path of most resistance. Survivor.

Contentment percolates for a time, until the two are hurtled into a life of uncertainty, self-evaluation, and growth. Each dreams heroic dreams of overcoming his/her past, rising out of sadness, rediscovering home, finding peace. Their worlds dissolve and reform. People and events threaten to tear them apart.

The Color of Home is a story of love, of loss, of digging deep down to the bottom of things until maybe, just maybe, Nick and Sassa find the strength to become whole. Their journey offers a unique, honest glimpse into the life and love of a palpably rare relationship of our time.

Review: 

Aha! I've finally finished it! God, I know I'm awful. I meant to post this review when the book actually came out on December 3rd. But unfortunately due to exams and impending high school graduation, I had to put it aside. I think that speaks for the novel. It was interesting, as in I picked up and read it after exams and such, but it wasn't so interesting that I couldn't put it down in the first place. (You know that feeling--when a book is so good that you spend every free moment reading, and even put off other things such as school work and feeding your pets to keep reading it.) 

So yes, I did enjoy this novel. It was realistic adult fiction, which was a change for me. I took great interest in the setting, which was New York City, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Portland, Maine. Also, the descriptions of food (Sassa is a chef) are absolutely mouth watering. I've never been craving a vegeterian dish before, but this book changed that...multiple times.

A little bit of a pet peeve are the names of characters in this book. There are a fair share of normal names, such as Debbie and Jessie and Rachel, but there are also a lot (too many) of freaking bizarre names. Some examples are Ashoka, Adira, Niveille, Myrina, and Halfa. Like come on. I dunno, it is just sort of a pet peeve of mine. 

The people in this novel were real, with flaws and mistakes and imperfections and it was glorious. However I have a problem with the dialogue. We are only witness to the dialogue that is extremely deep and existential. There is no way that the only conversation that these characters can have with each other is always so deep and important and life-revealing. It isn't real. Sometimes people stumble in what they are saying, sometimes they don't quite get the words out right. Sometimes they just have meaningless conversations that aren't always about such heavy topics. That is what makes them real.

This book's plot was so incredibly original for the most part, that I really liked it because it didn't give any indications of having any of the cliches when it comes to "will they, won't they get back together" (in the cliches, they always do end up together.) Instead, this story kept me guessing and I loved that. There was a real possibility that this novel would end in a way I didn't expect. Then the Conan O'Brien incident happened. And it was all predicable from there on out. 

This novel was a good novel, don't get me wrong. But I don't think it was perfect, which appears to be an unpopular opinion. I do very much love the very last line of the book, though. It was wonderful.

I would recommend this book.

Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

Other Books By This Author: This is Rich Marcello's first novel.