Head of the House

by Grace Livingston Hill

Published 1940

Okay, so, guilty confession time–sometimes I read Grace Livingston Hill!  There are days when my brain just isn’t interested in reading something deep or thought-provoking, and (especially before I discovered Georgette Heyer, who, I confess, has replaced Hill), I frequently turn to Grace Livingston Hill to provide me with some nice fluff with a happy ending and weddings all around.

However, Head of the House was not a very good choice.  Usually Hill’s books follow a pattern, wherein slightly-confused but yearning-to-be-noble young man coincidentally runs into gracious-and-beautiful-but-poor-Christian young lady.  In this book, an almost-of-age young woman is shattered by the sudden death of her parents.  She has several younger siblings, and overhears her selfish aunts and uncles planning to farm the family out amongst relatives and divvy up the money as well.  Determined to keep the family together, the sister (whose name I really can’t remember) decides to run away for the three months between the funeral and her 21st birthday.

So, the book is basically them just sort of hiding out, and there really isn’t much of a story at all.  The romantic part of the story occurs in about the last chapter.  The majority of the book is a lot of theology, and while I don’t mind Christian books talking about God/having some teaching, I’m really not always in agreement with Hill’s theology to being with, much less when it constitutes about a third of book.

This book was a 2/5–pretty boring, even for Grace Livingston Hill.