While there’s an allure to the bright lights of the big city, there’s no place like home. Or is there?

That’s the philosophical question that Matt Dunn explores in the novel Home. For anyone, like me, who left a small town for the big city, it makes you wonder what it would be like if you returned to your roots.

Home is en entertaining story about our protagonist, Josh Peters, moving from London back to his “sleepy” hometown of Derton-on-Sea. He’s not necessarily returning by choice, but when things start to sour in London with his work and romantic life, Josh decides it would be best to return home to help his mother care for his ailing father. What follows is a series of comedic moments as Josh reacquaints himself with his family, old friends, and the town he grew up in, which isn’t what it used to be. There’s all the typical characters you would expect in such a story including an over-bearing father, the high school bully, the childhood love interest, an out of touch work boss in London, and a superficial big city girlfriend who Josh can’t seem to please no matter what he does.

The book has plenty of well placed humor that may have you laughing out loud, touches of sadness that may cause you to shed a tear or two, and even moments of frustration (at least for me) as you observe Josh bumble his ways through the various relationships in his life. It kept leading me back to why doesn’t this guy get it, but then I realized it was all part of the philosophical introspection that Dunn is taking us through. Overall, Dunn does a good job making one realize that what we run from, to what we see as better, is not all it’s cracked to be, and that staying put also comes with its own set of challenges. In other words, there is no perfect situation. Life is messy, and that in itself is what makes it worth living.

Even though Home isn’t in my normal reading genre, it was good to take a sojourn outside of my typical science fiction, highly technical fictional reads. I found it to be an entertaining, light read that, as a former colleague liked to say, will make you laugh, make you cry, and possibly make you pee your pants. While it’s not a book you need to put at the top of your reading list, it’s definitely one I consider a Fun Read, and it might even make you contemplate the what-if’s should you ever decide (or have) to leave the big city and return to your small town roots.