Rating: 
Summary: VERY light reading!
Review: This a very sweet book...a little too sweet. In fact, the violent scenes seem oddly out of place. They don't quite fit, like another person wrote those parts of the book. Overall it was very "soap-operaish" , predictable and emotionally manipulative. If you're a fan of Danielle Steele or sappy romance novels you'll like thsi book.
Rating: 
Summary: What a magical book this was!
Review: I picked up this book because of the title -- thinking it would be a warm, comfy book, like roast beef and mashed potatoes are for Sunday dinner; and then I read the book jacket and was hooked. The seventeen-year-old with bad luck at sevens is seven months pregant with $7.77 in change? I had to read it. And it is magical. Much like Alice Hoffman and Ann Hood, Billie Letts takes a slice of life and puts it on the page. The plot often doesn't take twists a reader might desire, or expect -- much like life. And with the extraordinary characterizations Letts embodies her characters, the plot line is all the more poignant. Sometimes plot lines and characters that are a bit less ordinary, a bit more eclectic, are exactly the most appropriate devices an author can employ to impart his or her message to the reader. Letts does it succintly, magically, poignanty, and beautifully. This book *really did* make me "laugh, cry, and wonder why until the very end."
Rating:
Summary: One of the few books I have read more than once.
Review: I found Where the Heart Is a heartwarming, fun, imaginative look into the lives of simple people who made me appreciate the simple things in life. Regardless of how bad life got, Novalee continued to view the world through her "rose colored glasses." I will continue to read this book again and again to lift my spirits and bring joy to my day.
Rating:
Summary: Novalee = new and novel
Review: Letts' chatty, girlfriend-honest style will carry you past an initial dismissal of Novalee Nation as "just another pregnant teen"--a dismissal we are all too often guilty of. Letts starts with Novalee's externals--her swelling feet, her sweat and basic bodily functions--but by the end of the novel, Novalee is all heart and soul. Novalee trusts everyone she meets, a philosophy that brings her some pain, but which also creates for her everything she was not given at birth--a family, a home, and a clear vision of herself. Novalee creates her own life from scratch. She is a literary tabula rosa.
Rating:
Summary: Heartwarming, enthralling, tear jerker
Review: Who'd have thought this book could turn out a happy story!? It is about a pregnant, penniless 17 yr. old orphan, abandoned by her ne're do well boyfriend at a Walmart. You'll never regret reading this book. It's simple, down to earth style is one that everyone can relate to and enjoy. The storyline is gripping and you're left rooting for the heroine every inch of the way.
Rating: 
Summary: Rural Diversity
Review: "Where The Heart Is" is a refreshingly lighthearted tale that allows the reader to witness one girl's journeys, both across the country from her childhood home, and through life. The author, Billie Letts, develops characters in a manner that is uncommon in most of today's "pie in the sky" fictional literature. In the example of Novalee Nations, the main character, she unlikely develops as the books heroine, while simultaneously developing as a more well rounded and wise young woman. Other characters develop in similar fashions. Each seems to have their own burden to bear, including recovering from alcoholism, laboring to live above racism, caring for an alcoholic sibling, the restlesness and seeking of adolesence or just struggling with the consequences of making bad decisions. They all benefit from knowing each other. The storyline weaves with as many idiosyncracies as the characters whose lives it intertwines. Within it the heroine is taken from a life of chaos and squalor to a more predicitable life of stability and security. Novalee sees the dreams for her life at the beginning of the book get shattered in one road trip rest stop, only to be replaced with a reality that brings her even more satisfaction. This book is a true Horatio Alger tale for today, that will appeal to many.
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