Rating: 
Summary: "Sometimes love is like a house without any doors".
Review: My feelings about this book are best summed up by the following passage from the book, "Marriage is many things to many people: a contract of convenience, a plight of truest love, an agreement made with a friend, or even with an enemy or, oftentimes, with a stranger you're convinced that you know". We hear so often that "love is supposed to be..." "marriage is supposed to be..." Alice Hoffman reafirms that love and marriage can be many things. This book is about love and loss, passion and pain, unfinished business and "one's interpretation of the nature of love". In the end we are all just like the mourning doves out in the front yard chattering with the cold. They made their choice at summers end to stay in New England...now they'll just have to accept the consequences.
Rating: 
Summary: You can never go home again
Review: Because of commitments to school, I have not read a romance novel in some time. And let me point out that I am 53 years olds and have read many a romance novel in my day and had my share of relationships - good and bad. I found the characters believable but if the main character was so unhappy with her husband why did she stay? Maybe she was just comfortable with him until she returned to her home town. I am not the most moral, church going person in the world, but I really felt that if she wanted to go back to her old flame she should have shipped her daughter back to California. Living with that jerk in front of her daugher with her long suffering husband waiting around wasn't too cool. As my summary says, you can never go home again.
Rating:
Summary: Not a Formula Book
Review: So, what becomes of March and Gwen and Richard? And does anyone discover how Hollis made his fortune? Does anyone question why death has touched so many people in his life? I searched and searched for the pages obviously missing from my edition that would tie up the loose ends of this story. It finally dawned on me that this is not a formula book. All the details I expected by the end of the book were not a part of this story. The unexpected was a pleasant surprise.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting but not her best work
Review: I have read ALL of Alice Hoffman's books and was very excited when this one came out. I have to admit though, I am a little disappointed. I am about half-way through the book and finding it not a compelling read (I keep hoping I'll get hooked) HOWEVER, I would urge any reader - whether you are loving this book, or hating it - read her other work, ESPECIALLY "TURTLE MOON". That was my introduction to Hoffman and really blew me away. Don't give up on Alice, every book can't "hit a home run".
Rating:
Summary: NOT SURE
Review: I HAVE READ MANY OF ALICE HOFFMAN'S BOOKS, SO WAS EXCITED TO SEE OPRAH'S CHOICE OF ONE OF HER BOOKS. ALTHO THIS BOOK KEPT MY INTEREST HELD, I DO NOT THINK IT WAS A GOOD INTRODUCTION TO THE MAGIC OF HER USUAL WRITING. TO THE PERSON WHO SAID THEY WOULD READ NO MORE OF HER BOOKS, PLEASE RECONSIDER. YOU WILL BE MISSING OUT ON SOMETHING SPECIAL IF YOU STOP HERE. I AGREE WITH ONE POINT MADE - HER MAGICAL PROSE WAS PERFECT AGAIN IN THIS, BUT THEN ON THE NEXT PAGE SHE WOULD HIT YOU WITH CRUDENESS AND I'M NOT USED TO THAT IN HER BOOKS, BUT THEN AGAIN, THE BOOK REMINDED ME OF LIFE, BEAUTY AND UGLINESS COMBINED. EVERYONE MAKES DUMB CHOICES, AND MARCH DID IN THIS CASE, BUT SHE DID EVENTUALLY WAKE UP - BUT AT SUCH A GREAT EXPENSE.
Rating: 
Summary: An absolute rip-off of Wuthering Heights
Review: The first two chapters of this book are stolen directly from one of my Favorite books, Wuthering Heights. Isn't there a law about this. Hey Alice ; get your own story!!
Rating:
Summary: Do your self a favor and read "Wuthering Heights" instead
Review: I don't usually read Oprah books, but since this was supposed to be the "90's Wuthering Heights," I thought I'd give it a try. Not only is the writing miserable, but the plot is strangely very close to that of the novel written 150 years ago. Coincidence? I think not. Poor Emily Bronte must be rolling in her grave. If anyone wants to read a truly good book instead of this homemaker fantasy trash, go to your library and pick a classic. Wuthering Heights would be a good one if you didn't already know the plot word for word from "Here on Earth." But really, I think Oprah should give up the "book" club. By her choices, we wonder if she ever passed high school english.
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Summary: An obsessive love story resulting in terror
Review: Alice Hoffman's, "Here on Earth" illustrates the tragic results a romantic infatuation can take when acted upon. March Murray is a woman who, although married, is obsessed with a childhood boy named Hollis. Disillusioned by this romance she leaves her small town in Massachusetts for California marrying a man also from her hometown. Never fully being satisfied with her marriage she returns to her hometown with her daughter to attend the funeral of Judith Dale, her housekeeper and eventual caretaker. Upon her arrival back home, old emotions begin to stir and feelings of a romance that should have never ended, resurface. What happens between March and Hollis is what "Here on Hearth" details. Alice Hoffman has taken the novel of "Wuthering Heights" by Emily Bronte and updated it for our time. Even the name of the main character, Hollis, is a derivative of Bronte's Heathcliff - yet "Wuthering Heights" does not have to be read to understand the obsessive romance portrayed here. One needs to look beyond the surface to fully realize Hoffman's point. This is not merely a story of a woman trapped by a controlling abusive man. This is a story about infatuated love versus true love and, here on earth, love is to be looked at from the heart not the mind. The characters of March's daughter Gwen and March's nephew Hank illustrate Ms. Hoffman's points in detail and it is through them that we see love and humanity. "Here on Earth" is an interesting and absorbing novel.
Rating: 
Summary: Yuck
Review: Again, I read many of the reviews posted here before I decided to read this book. Many people wrote about this wonderful love between Hollis and March. Are you out of your mind? That's not love! It's some sick obsession these two have for each other. I'm very disappointed with Here on Earth. So disappointed that I don't know if I can finish the thing. It just makes me angry to read it. Not because it's striking a nerve or anything that deep. The story is just plain stupid and unbelievable. There's nothing endearing about this novel. Someone used the term "sleaze" and I find it very descriptive. Big news flash, ladies....sex and love are not one and the same!
Rating:
Summary: What a woman won't do for a first love is scary!
Review: At first I could understand her drive to not let go of her past since she never knew why he never came back. I felt she jeopardized who she was and had become without him, especially her relationship with her daughter for a self center, self absorbed man. I'm glad she woke up before she did not have the courage to walk away. If only we could all have such courage in negative relationships.
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