Book Club: Home Home by Lisa Allen-Agostini
2 min read
Exploring Mental Health, Migration, and What It Really Means to Come Home
When everything familiar is stripped away—your friends, your culture, your entire sense of self—how do you find the courage to start again? That’s the question at the heart of Home Home by Lisa Allen-Agostini, our June Book Club Pick here at Intellectual Ink.
This award-winning young adult novel is an intimate and beautifully written journey through mental illness, cultural displacement, and self-discovery. For anyone who has ever felt like a stranger in their own life, this book offers honesty, hope, and healing.
Why This Book Now?
Because mental health in the Black community still needs space, language, and care.
Because migration and displacement aren’t just about geography—they’re about identity, grief, and growth.
Because young people deserve stories that reflect their internal worlds—not just their external struggles.
In Home Home, we meet a Trinidadian teen who is uprooted from her life and dropped into unfamiliar, snowy Canada after being hospitalized for depression. Living with an estranged aunt and feeling increasingly isolated, she navigates a world where nothing feels warm—not the weather, not the people, not even herself.
But slowly, through therapy, family reconnection, and unexpected friendships, she starts to see the possibility of a life that’s not just surviving, but thriving.
A Voice That Feels Like a Friend
Lisa Allen-Agostini writes with poetic precision and emotional honesty. Her main character’s inner dialogue is raw and real—never sugar-coated or made to perform. And that’s what makes it powerful.
This book doesn’t offer a tidy recovery arc. It offers something better: truth, messiness, and the small, quiet victories of choosing to stay, to feel, and to heal.
Let’s Talk About It
We’re not just reading this book—we’re building community around it here is a few reflection questions to sit with:
- What does “home” mean to you—and has that meaning ever changed?
- How can we support teens and young adults navigating mental health crises?
- What parts of the character’s journey felt most familiar or unfamiliar to your own?
About the Author:
Lisa Allen-Agostini is an acclaimed Trinidadian writer, journalist, and editor. Home Home marks her debut YA novel and has been praised for its heartfelt portrayal of depression and cultural displacement.
