Rating: 
Summary: Great Book --
Review: I read it while I was in the Peace Corps and it really touched home.
Rating:
Summary: Struggling for equality...
Review: In Zora Neale Hurston's classic, THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD, we see the issues of race and gender prevalent in the early 1900s, the strength and capacity to love that most women exhibit, and the celebration of African-American culture. We're introduced to Janie Crawford as she returns to Eatonville, FL. Shunned by the people of this small town, she relies on her best friend to relate her experiences back to them in an attempt to satisfy their curiosity. Weaving in flashbacks of her life as a child and on through her adulthood to the present moment, we're able to see Janie's growth.
Raised by her grandmother, Janie was led to believe that a marriage to a wealthy man would bring her happiness; even if that wasn't the case initially. Unfortunately, wealth alone is not enough for Janie; yet she learns to set boundaries on what she will and will not accept from a man. Soon after, she leaves town with a smooth-talking man who promises her the world. While he becomes quite successful and is able to provide for her, it's not the materialistic things she has her heart set on. When he dies, she is given one more opportunity to find true love with a younger man who ends up being her soul mate.
Through Janie's relationships, the dialogue, and settings, readers are able to see her internal conflict with what society forces upon her, what she's been taught to believe, and her feelings. The story captures her struggle for equality, not only because she was black, but also because she was a woman.
Sometimes a person needs the hardships of life, as well as a deep look inside themselves to truly be happy with their lives. While the romantic relationship between Janie and her husbands are at the forefront of this book, it contains so much more. It is about Janie finding peace, acceptance, and embracing who she really was. Through Hurston's lyrical tone and the use of the time period's dialect, this story is brought to life beautifully. We're not only able to hear Janie's thoughts; we're able to feel them too. Through Hurston's use of analogies, metaphors, and even humor, Janie's story ends up being a beautiful tribute to love, and also to African-American culture.
Reviewed by Tee C. Royal
of The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers
Rating: 
Summary: This is a novel of affirmation?
Review: This book was definitely interesting. It was most certainly memorable. But was it uplifting?I feel more than a bit funny just asking that question, much less answering it. Not being black myself, I'm probably not the best person to decide just how inspiring this book is. The story to me came across as very real. It has its moments of joy and humor, but it also had plentiful helpings of sorrow and pain. So where is the inspiration? How is this the prototypical Black novel of affirmation? Is the affirmation found simply in the telling of the story, no matter how sad? Does putting the pain and sorrow into words of beauty somehow empower the victim? Is it the fact that the heroine perseveres in the face of so much adversity, and finds joy in life when there is little to find? Honestly, I felt more pity for Janie than anything. Time and again she proves to have an enormous heart, her most endearing quality as a character and also the one that gets her into the most trouble. She is trusting when perhaps she shouldn't be, loving when perhaps she shouldn't be, and forgiving when perhaps she shouldn't be. Her judgment is less than perfect and is often clouded by emotion. It's hard to find inspiration in any of the other characters either. Joe Starks is too ambitious, mostly in the pejorative sense of the word, and shows little respect for Janie. Tea Cake comes across as conniving, deceitful, and manipulative. And none of the other characters seems all that bright. But maybe it's precisely in the realism of the story that the inspiration lies. Perhaps it's meant to be a celebration of enduring against adversity, both from without and from within.
Rating: 
Summary: The Zest for Zeal of Janie & Teacake
Review: This book "Their Eyes were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston was first given to me in 1974. It is probably without a doubt one of the best books that I have ever read. Certainly one of the best pieces of literature written by an Afro-American woman that I have read. I read somewhere that the story is characterized as a tragedy. How can it be tragic when the character whom the story is centered around is happy in the end?
Happy to have been loved and to have loved in the manner that Janie and Teacake shared in their relationship. The book left me forever the hopeless romantic wanting to find that kind of kinship, comradery with my mate. I recommend that you read this book with an open mind and a box of puffs' tissues.
Rating:
Summary: Definitely worth the acclaim
Review: The black South of the 1930's is brought vividly to life by Hurston, who tells the story of a young woman struggling to find a life of her own and genuine love. Janie Crawford breaks away from a life pre-destined by her grandmother, then from a life pre-destined by an overbearing husband, to find her own definition of success--a simple life, but full of love and freedom. Aside from being a great story, the novel is also a course in the fundamentals of conveying dialect and language through literature. I loved it!
Rating:
Summary: You Are Always Being Watched
Review: You Are Always Being Watched
"Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. For some they come in with the tide and others they sail forever on the horizon but, never out of sight, never landing until the watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by time." Which proves to be the life of men. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, women find themselves powerfully representing in this novel often directed and personal.
In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora N. Hurston Write about a woman who wasn't sad nor compassion. She wasn't a tragic mulatto, who defied everything that was expected of her. The woman went off with a man without bothering to divorce the one she left and wasn't broken, crushed, and run down. Intimately, the readers know the two characters talked about in this novel.
In the beginning a woman comes back from burying the dead. The people knew because the sun went down and he left footprint in the sky. She gives a pleasant speech and "the porches couldn't talk for looking." It's now time to sit on the porches beside the road where the most gossip done. "Where the people sit around the and the pictures of their thoughts from the others to hear and see."
The protagonist journey from the object to the subject throughout the novel. Shifting from third person to first person. Third person signifying this awareness of self in the protagonist.
Hurston source of language seems to be her principal concern, as she constanly shift back and forth between her narrator's voice to a highly "street talk". She uses personification and metaphor several times throughout the novel. Characters and the mood come alive and "words walking without masters; walking altogether like harmony I a song" is an example of personification.
Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora N. Hurston is a great book for women who love to read love stories. The life that Hurston could write wasn't the life that she could live. Hurston's life, much reality than does the standard sociological rendering reveals how economic limits determine our choices even more than does violence or love. This book is two thumb up and it shouldn't be a book anyone should pass up no matter who you are.
Rating:
Summary: You have to read this book
Review: If you read only one book in it entirety, then I recommend that you read Their Eyes Were Watching God. This novel is one of the best story of women independence that I've had read in a while. It is a story of Janie Crawford who finds herself after many difficult struggles. It is a deep felt story told expectionally well. You might be surprised with the outcome because it is not like what you would expect from Janie when you first meet her.
The novel showed the oppression from racism, and also the hardships from sexism during the 1930s. The dialogue compliments the story so well, the culture and mental pictures are vivid and wonderful. I enjoyed reading this novel because it speaks for the equality, for the pursuit of happiness instead of possessions. Hurston is an amazing writer. I highly recommend this novel to anyone that wants to learn more about women struggles in life and how they overcome these obstacles.
Rating:
Summary: A Masterpiece
Review: A librarian from Mount Vernon, IA: The novel begins with gossip and speculation about Janie, a woman returning home. It deepens when Janie and her friend, Phoeby, gather at dusk to discuss the reason for Janie's return. As Janie begins her story, that is really a story of self-discovery, the darkness around them deepens, becoming a 'monstropolous old thing.' Her tale ends before dawn and through hearing the intimate details of her life, which seem as 'a giant tree in leaf with the things suffered, things enjoyed, things done and undone,' we, listeners much like Phoeby, understand that all lives, including our own, have 'dawn and doom. . .in the branches.' Please do yourself a favor and buy this book! Also recommended: THE LOSERS' CLUB by Richard Perez
Rating: 
Summary: this book is horrible
Review: My highschool class had to read this in class so due to the many people in our public schools who can hardly read this took us about a month and a half to read. The story didn't start off good for me because its a book written mainly for women and I am a man who enjoys a Tom Clancy novel well I felt that it also puts down the African American race by making it look as if most African Americans are like Tea Cakes who is a run around or the judge who beats his wife and treats her about as good as a slave (which isn't good at all). This book in my opinion is smut and if I where African American I'd be upset that people said this book showed the struggle of the African american it does not it does show many steryotypes similar to the ones that the movie hollywood shuffle fought against I'm sorry if that step on some toes but thats my opinion
Rating:
Summary: Must Read
Review: I feel like every African American who wants to really understand where we came from should read this book. This is not the only one they should read, but it is at the top of my list.
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