Which House is Mine Again?: 80 Questions I Never Had ‘til I Moved to a Subdivision

Julie Wheaton had lived in tract houses for ten years when she came across a phrase that worried her: Architecture influences behavior. Would her kids turn out different somehow for being raised in a cookie-cutter house instead of a custom house? No. The kids were fine, but Julie was another story.

Which House is Mine Again? tells how one woman tweaked cookie-cutter culture to suit her sensibilities. Set mostly in Southern California, this memoir of mastering a master-planned community lays out Julie’s odd rationales, her clever workarounds, and the ridiculous descriptions builders dream up to sell tract houses, like harmonious floor plans or a generous array of standard features.

Told in vibrant, funny, and razor-sharp anecdotes, this guided tour of sardine-packed subdivisions reveals who’s lying when friends say they’re building a house, the pranks that neighbors play, and the terms that truly describe sprawl-town life, such as welcome wall, guessed suite, and college-prep bedroom.