Gilead vs Home: Which Should You Read?
Both live on shelves: Iowa, Children of clergy, Conflict of generations, Clergy, Fathers and sons, Christian Fiction
Gilead
“I told you last night that I might be gone sometime, and you said, Where, and I said, To be with the Good Lord, and you said, Why, and I said, Because I'm old, and you said, I don't think you're old.”
WINNER OF THE 2005 PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION In 1956, toward the end of Reverend John Ames’s life, he begins a letter to his young son, an account of himself and his forebears. Ames is the son of an Iowan preacher and…
vs
Home
Hailed as "incandescent," "magnificent," and "a literary miracle" (Entertainment Weekly), hundreds of thousands of readers were enthralled by Marilynne Robinson's Gilead. Now Robinson returns with a brilliantly imagined…
The verdict
- Readers rate Home highest: Home 4.0 · Gilead 3.6.
- Home has the widest readership — 31164 ratings behind its score.
- Home runs the darker storyline; Gilead stays the lighter read.
How to choose
Scores by source
| Gilead | Home | |
|---|---|---|
| Goodreads | — | 4.0 (31164) |
| Hardcover | 3.9 (210) | 4.2 (37) |
| Google Books | 3.5 (2) | 4.5 (4) |
| Apple Books | 3.5 (902) | 4.0 (160) |
Reception
| Gilead | Home | |
|---|---|---|
| Ratings | 902 | 31164 |
| Editions | 37 | 27 |
| Film adaptations | 1 | 1 |
| Want to read | — | 37445 |
| Reading it now | — | 1820 |
| Written reviews | — | 4576 |
| Wikipedia attention | 8895 | 1477 |
| Pages | 257 | 336 |