I don't know how I really feel about this one. It started very slow and boring with references to things in the past but not a hint as to what that could be. I was starting to get annoyed when it was finally revealed what the history is between the two girls but it took too long to get there. I wish that there had been more interesting plot and it kept me more entertained. Also the book seemed pretty out there and unrealistic in that who randomly goes out to a compound with her baby after hearing from a friend who has been missing for a good amount of time. Just seemed a little far fetched for me.

If you're thinking heading to the desert to a compound with people you don't know with your baby in the middle of nowhere with no cell reception is a recipe for disaster, then you would be right. Sara Shepard is the master of disguise and deception when it comes to friendships. <i>Nowhere Like Home</i> is everything I expected. There were so many unreliable characters but the pull to keep reading was a strong one. I loved the element of suprise that these twists provided. Just when I thought I knew what was happening, I found out something new that made me question my theory. How well can you really know someone who you thought was your best friend, especially if you only knew them for 2 years before they disappeared? When they came back out of nowhere to invite you to an all female community for a break and to clear your head, would you go?

The perfect mystery if you love twisty thrillers! Nowhere Like Home transports its readers to the desert and easily draws them in from the first chapter. Doesn't every new mom dream of a village of support, especially when she has so little of her own? Lenna is drawn in by Rhiannon's invitation to come visit the fabulous community she's living in. Off the grid, away from society, men, and solely focused on helping women. Seems too good to be true, right? You guessed it, nothing is as it seems at the ranch and it's definitely Nowhere Like Home.

This books was hard for me to get into at first. I wasn’t quite sure where the story was going and it just felt really slow. It kept referencing something that happened between the two main characters, but took forever to find out what actually happened. Then the plot twist just threw me for a loop, but also wasn’t my favorite. It felt kinda of far fetched.

Thank you to Net Galley, Dutton books and author Sara Shepard for this gifted copy in exchange for an honest review.

“Nowhere Like Home” has an interesting premise in that it revolves around a commune of mothers.

For fans of slow burns and toxic friendships, this is the book for you.

As a fan of the Pretty Little Liars series growing up, I was excited to read Sara Shepard’s newest work. However, I ultimately ended up having a hard time connecting with the characters and didn’t really find myself rooting for any one in particular.

I still firmly believe that people who enjoy cult-like stories, would enjoy this book.

Thank you NetGalley and Dutton for this advanced copy.

This was really compelling and twisty and pulled me in from page one. Not like anything I have read before. Highly recommend! Thank you to Netgalley and the Publisher for approving me to read and review this ARC. I cant wait to read more from this author.

I really enjoyed this book. It was different than anything else I've read recently. I couldn't put it down! I will keep an eye out for this author's future work!

Lenna has secrets in her past that always haunt her, even as she tries to make a new life with her husband and son. When she gets a call from her old friend, Rhiannon, who had suddenly disappeared years before, Lenna is pulled into her vortex again and finds herself leaving all she knows behind to visit Rhiannon at the commune she’s living at. Halcyon is a community of women living in the desert in Arizona, but everything isn’t as it seems in this community. Lenna finds this out when she decides to visit Rhiannon, she’s trying to escape the secrets of her path but instead she might be walking right back into their clutches.

Whenever I see a new book by Sara Shepard I am intrigued. I loved the PLL books and really enjoy the stories she weaves. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I picked up this book, but I definitely wasn’t disappointed. I liked how this story twisted and turned, jumping back in time in places, to form this thriller that was hard to put down. There were a lot of the characters that I didn’t care for, but I liked Lenna and enjoyed following along with her while she experienced everything, past and present. Overall I thought this was a good twisty thriller that kept my attention and laid out a story I didn’t see coming in the beginning.

This book was quite the ride! I really like how topics like social anxiety, bullying, toxic friendships, and motherhood were represented. Told in multiple POVs and time jumps that built suspense and kept me interested in finding out how it would all come together. Even though the characters were older, some of the dialogue between them made it seem like they were in their teens. It also made it a bit difficult to connect with the main characters. Overall, this was a quick and entertaining read that I'd definitely recommend.

I really enjoyed this one! I loved how developed the characters were - I understood what motivated their actions, the dialogue was well-done, and the dual timeline and perspectives gives the reader just enough information at the right time. This book had me hooked right from the beginning, and the suspense/creep factor was high throughout. The ending was satisfying, and overall, I really loved this book!

Nowhere like home starts with a young mother disappearing in the early morning hours, running away to meet a friend at a "momune," a group of women living off the grid and raising their kids in their own safe setting. Leanna takes her young son to meet an old friend, Rhiannon, who had disappeared years before. Rhiannon tells Leanna there is a safe place for them with other moms, and Leanna spontaneously makes the trip to the Arizona desert to meet her friend and the rest of the moms. Told from present time at the group compound and the past friendship between Leanna, Rhiannon, and Gillian, the mystery of why Rhiannon disappeared and why Leanna felt the need to run away come to a head. Combined with the unknown pasts of the women of the group, it's not easy to know who to trust in this novel.

Overall, this story started out slowly for me, but picked up with the flashbacks to the past. I enjoyed learning about the "old" Leanna and Rhiannon and their friendship with Instagram influencer Gillian. I would recommend this book to friends and will look forward to the next from Sara Shepard!

Thank you to Dutton for the digital copy to review!

This was a fascinating thriller, full of layered and complex female friendships that went in such a way that I could not possibly guess. It was a little on the slower burn side but that was fine, and told from a few POVs and in two timelines which I loved. There was a common denominator that connected all of these characters and plenty of red herrings to throw you off. I loved this one and read it in a day, my attention was grabbed from the start and held until the very end. I was intrigued by the ‘mommune’ premise and it did not disappoint!

"How do you break up with a friend?" How far will you go for friendships? This book was a wild trip and although the MC got on my nerves sometimes, couldn't stop reading the story! I liked how the parts broke down between Lenna's, Sarah's, and Rhiannan's versions of the story. I would recommend this book to those who like thrillers and cult stories!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Toxic friendships, cult vibe atmosphere, middle of nowhere location should make for an interesting story but this was just ok. I found Lenna and Rhiannon not at all likeable, add in Gillian and the other characters and the story became unbelievable. I didn’t think it was a thriller at all. The twists were interesting though. 2.5 stars

When Lenna gets a call from her old friend, Rhiannon she is surprised and intrigued. Rhiannon had disappeared years ago, and they hadn’t been on the best of terms. More surprising is Rhiannon is living off the grid in a woman only community – women supporting women. Rhiannon invites Lenna who decides this might be the way to repair her friendship with the woman who once meant the world to her.
In a dual timeline, the lies and betrayals are rolled out. Support and suspicion will shift from character to character with each new chapter.
A cultish like book and belief will have to be suspended to enjoy this one. It provides plenty of twists, unreliable narrators and unlikeable characters. So if that isn’t your vibe, this one might not be for you. It was just too much of it all for me. But if you like toxic friendships, lies and secrets and unstable characters, this will give you all that!

Thank you NetGalley, Sara Shepard, and Penguin Group Dutton for this e-arc in exchange for my honest review.

I had such high hopes for this one, but to be honest it fell a little flat for me. I didn't love the main character, to be honest she kind of drove me nuts. But I loved the cult vibes this book had, and all the crazy twists and turns that left me saying WHAT?!

3.5 star read for me.

This novel is wild. You have to suspend your disbelief to such a high level in order to enjoy the plot of this book, that it becomes almost impossible to ignore all the elements of it that are just ridiculous. However, I really did try to do that, and for the most part, I enjoyed the ride here. While it makes absolutely no sense that Lenna would pick up and leave her entire life at the drop of the hat because of ONE meeting with her old friend Rhiannan, as the plot moves forward, Shepard does a decent job showing the reader Lenna's motivations for her decision making. That being said, it's such a stretch, and what happens through the rest of the book is even more of a banana pants impossibility that it becomes almost comical. And there are zero characters here that you can root for as a reader, because they are all either completely nuts (unbelievably so) or so naive as to be silly (in Lenna's case). But again, I had fun with this one. I still found myself invested in the story and the characters enough to continue even as I was laughing to myself at the ridiculousness throughout. So, enter at your own risk I guess, but I did enjoy it.

I was intrigued by the premise of this one and ultimately did not fully predict the twists and turns this novel would take.

Meh, I wanted to like this more than I did. It was promising with the cult like feel of it all! I couldn’t get with the main character Lenna. She kidnapped her baby she shares with a partner because the baby cries a lot, and he doesn’t help as much, to escape to a cult. Whhhaaattttt. It was hard to get past her general look on everything.

That said, I enjoyed all the twists this novel did have after the midway point. The final twist was a huge surprise and I enjoyed that greatly. This was a good book. If you like cults and can get past Lena’s behavior, I recommend this!

Nowhere Like Home by Sara Shepard is all about that drama drama and gave me serious cult vibes. Told in 2 timelines, this slow burner didn't take me long to get into and held my attention the entire time. I loved Shepard's Pretty Little Liars series, but I have been really enjoying her adult novels as well, and this was a great little addition to her body of work. I wasn't a huge fan of any of the characters but that didn't stop me from being excited to see what would happen next, and I loved that we dug into their lives a decent amount. There were some great twists and turns in the second half of the book and things went from almost mundane to full throttle when we get to the very end.

I will shout from the rooftops that the audiobook is the way you should read this book, and Brittany Pressley killed it with her narration of all of the various viewpoints. She is one of my favorite narrators and even as the only narrator for multiple POVs, she is perfection. There is an obsession aspect to the story as well that gave me female friendship You vibes, and who needs anything else when you have friends like the ones in this book? Nowhere Like Home may have not been a 5-star read for me, but it was completely enjoyable, and if you like Shepard's other adult novels (like me), you should definitely like this!