Book info

• Title Homesick
• Author Catrina Davies
• Year 2019
• Genre Memoir

Aged thirty-one, Catrina Davies was renting a box-room in a house in Bristol, which she shared with four other adults and a child. Working several jobs and never knowing if she could make the rent, she felt like she was breaking apart. Homesick for the landscape of her childhood, in the far west of Cornwall, Catrina decides to give up the box-room and face her demons. As a child, she saw her family and their security torn apart; now, she resolves to make a tiny, dilapidated shed a home of her own. With the freedom to write, surf and make music, Catrina rebuilds the shed and, piece by piece, her own sense of self. This is the story of a personal housing crisis and a country-wide one, grappling with class, economics, mental health and nature.

Thoughts

This was an interesting book detailing the perils and pitfalls of living in a dwelling not really designed to support human life, alongside the joy and calm that comes from being that much closer to nature. The housing crisis is dissected in detail here and it’s completely relatable and understandable how Davies ends up living in a shed… albeit not something I would have been able to do. Lots of bureaucratic and political problems are highlighted here but it all boils down to humans treating each other kindly and being able to have some basic human rights. Without that, what are we?

Rating: 3 / 5