Homebound

by Portia Elan ★★☆☆☆

Homebound opens in 1983, with a focus on an angsty young woman, Becks, dealing with family issues and the recent death of her uncle. Then, in Chapter 2, it fast-forwards to 2586, on a boat somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean. There we meet Yeshiko and Root, who navigate a planet Earth that's now mostly submerged beneath the seas in something reminiscent of Waterworld. We know Becks is a burgeoning computer programmer, dabbling around with BASIC. We have no idea how the stories could be connected.

Despite the 600-year gap in timelines, I thought the novel started off strong. Yeshiko and Root were compelling, and their pathway to carving out survival through salvage set a strong foundation. When they pick up mysterious passengers after a stop at a rough-and-tumble floating city, I was interested and optimistic. Similarly, Becks' gradual discovery of a program her uncle was working on before his untimely death also seemed to open to the door to something that could be really interesting. I became hopeful that this could be a tightly crafted tale that gradually revealed an unlikely connection across hundreds of years, akin to Cloud Cuckoo Land.

I should have tempered my expectations. While we eventually pick up a third storyline, told through a series of email correspondence in the 2070s and 2080s that builds some bridge between everything, the result is, to put it lightly, disappointing. I wanted a grand reveal that pulled it all together in an a-ha moment, but when I finished, I literally said out loud, "That's it?". From such a promising start, it sputtered to a wholly unsatisfying conclusion.

The novels flails about, never entirely sure what it wants to be. My best guess is that first-time author Portia Elan wanted to write a story about discovering one's identity and the components that influence that journey, but the grand canvas she chose to convey that ended up muddying the message rather than enhancing it. It's almost as if she had two completely independent ideas for stories, and she thought maybe she could somehow combine them into a single novel. Quite simply, it didn't work. This is one to skip.

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Quick Facts

• Title: Homebound

• Author: Portia Elan

• Publisher: Scribner

• Release Date: May 5, 2026

• Format: Ebook

• ISBN-13: 978-1668201756

• Pages: 304