Engrossing ... Moustakis’s language is spare and exquisite, tough and lovely. The sentences build on themselves, becoming expansive and staggering in their sweep ... Moustakis finds magnificence in the smallness.
A book that's as stark and beautiful as its icy setting ... Homestead is a deeply interior novel by necessity: Lawrence is reticent by nature, and the characters frequently find themselves alone with their thoughts. There is dialogue in the novel, and it's unfailingly true to life; Moustakis particularly does a wonderful, understated job with Marie and Sheila's east Texas vocabulary and cadences. But she's equally adept at the silences that mark the characters' seemingly small moments ... Homestead is a beautiful novel, quiet as a snowfall, warm as a glowing wood stove. It's also a profound look at how we navigate one another, and what it means to reveal ourselves to the ones we care about.
The natural world is ever-present in this work, and most of the shatteringly beautiful writing has at its center a mountain range, a body of water, an animal or the snow ... The final third of the novel plunges deeper into questions of ownership and entitlement, with Moustakis' well-drawn characters reaching wildly different conclusions in this often somber, often radiantly beautiful work.
Nuanced and suffused with poetry, Moustakis' novel paints an indelible portrait of a couple finding their way in the wilderness ... An atmospheric debut about the savagery of nature, learning to trust, and the wilds that exist within all of us.
Moustakis shines in her debut, the dramatic rendering of a young couple’s homesteader life in mid-1950s Alaska ... The wondrous descriptions of the back-breaking labor involved in clearing and farming the land, and of the region’s vast beauty, will make readers feel like they’re there. This evocative, well-drawn account of Alaska’s American settlers is so convincing it ought to come with a pair of mittens.