Your House Will Pay: ‘Elegant [and] suspenseful.’ New York Times

Thank you to the Reading Agency and Faber and Faber for providing Macclesfield Library Reading Group with copies of Your House Will Pay by Steph Cha we have greatly enjoyed reading and discussing this story.
Although the story covers very serious topical ground it does so in a very human and accessible way through the narrative of two families and very successfully fleshed-out, believable characters. The character’s complexities and imperfections help us understand how complicated and damaging the stories we tell ourselves can be.
“A very well written novel that intertwines reality, history and story gracefully. The book left one asking-what has changed?”
“A really well written thought-provoking book that taught me a lot, Shawn and Grace were very relatable and all of the characters were well fleshed out and seemed to find hope through the end of the story.”
“A thought-provoking book that gave us a variety of topics to discuss e.g. politics, racism, family life.”
“The thought this book left me with was that racism doesn’t go away and seems to be between all ethnic groups as portrayed by this book. A thought provoking read with hope at the end.”
“I thought this book was brilliant! The LA riots are something that I have never heard and knew nothing about. The truth is I'm far removed from any of the subjects in the book having never really had to deal with police or racism - but still shocked me reading some of the deaths and how they came about. “

It is difficult to rate this book because to give it four or five stars would not accurately reflect how I feel about it, but to knock it down to two or three stars would be unfair because that would devalue the story it tells, the issues raised. It's an important book and I'm glad to have read it.

My knowledge of LA's race riots, gang violence, interracial tensions and relationships, comes from newspaper headlines and media reports, so I value Steph Cha's insights into a troubled history that continues to affect real people's lives and prospects. However the way the book is written just didn't work for me. I found it clumsy and over-reliant on telling not showing. As a crime thriller it is too heavy on the issues at the expense of developing proper characters, with the exception of Shawn.

The novel reminds me of those 90 minute made-for-TV movies they used to show in the 80s dramatising real events, to inform and entertain. Difficult to pull off without coming over all Social Realist (in more recent times, Ken Loach manages to walk the line, for eg).

I can see from reviews here and in the media I'm in a minority. A page turner? Only in the sense I raced through just to get to the end and be done. I guessed who had done the shooting at its centre almost straight away, and there were some unlikely aspects I won't go into because of spoilers. Grace in particular just didn't come to life as other than a necessary construct.

For me the novel is too weighed down by the (very real) issues it covers. As fiction it falls short. Just my opinion, as a reader. As an insightful and thought provoking book covering important issues to do with racism, identity, generational guilt and family relationships OTOH, it works effectively therefore deserves praise and an audience. We need to come together in shared experience and understanding, regardless of whatever labels society uses to identify us. Yet I struggled to finish the novel.

A fascinating book ,quite thought provoking ,a touching story of two families .

Based on a true story, and set in LA, this powerful tale explores the impact of racism on both individuals and society. The story is based on two families of different cultures and tells how they have unknowingly become entwined together. It is a powerful and poignant read.

i found this a stimulating and informative read.It's a multi layered story of racial tensions, family loyalties and the challenges of growing up in hard circumstances. There are two primary narrators which enable very different perspectives to be shared about the same situation. It's not an easy read due to the topic (guns, drugs,riots,racial intolerance ) but it is written well and the ending lends itself to more optimistic outlook than perhaps expected

Really interesting novel based on an incident that happened in LA in the early nineties. I found it thought provoking that there was so much tension between the ethnic minorities in LA. The ending I thought clever, perhaps in their story justice had kind of prevailed and it was time for forgiveness on both sides.

An intense novel that I found an uncomfortable read. It is gritty and based on fact and I struggled through to the end. It shows how ethnic minorities have great trouble integrating and divisions remain for generations.