Rating: 
Summary: I highly recomend this book!!!
Review: an easy to unersatnd and enjoyable book. it is a piece of art. the people and places are easy to imagine. it is the first book i read from ann tyler and a liked it a lot. everyone should read it. reading this book made me forget my problems for a while. READ IT!
Rating: 
Summary: A very entertaining book!
Review: Earthly Possessions is a novel about a middle-aged woman named Charlotte Emory. She has lived in the same dusty, mildewed house her whole life and has never left the premises of the small, barren town she calls home. Her husband is a very controlling and overbearing man, and she thinks he only married her out of ease. She is very bored in her life and marriage and although she thinks about leaving her husband constantly, she can never quite bring herself to take the final step and walk out the door. This is probably because she has always depended on other people to lead her through life and can't imagine what she would do if she had to make decisions on her own for the first time. And then one day she finds encouragement from an unlikely place. While she is pouring a bowl of cereal a gold pendant comes out of the cereal box and lands in her bowl. The pendant is labeled `keep on truckin' and she takes this as a sign that this is the day she needs to leave her husband. Ironically, this same day, she makes a trip to the bank and a young, cocky male who is headed across the country takes her hostage. Charlotte thinks this is just another bad event in the horrible series of her life, but it turns out to be the journey of a lifetime. Jake, the young man who kidnaps Charlotte, is really not a bad person at all, but he has just had a very rough and unlucky life. Charlotte and Jake end up learning a lot from each other and become close on their trip. She finally meets some interesting characters totally different from the people in her hometown who are all the alike. She not only observes new scenery, but also develops a whole new sense of self. She realizes her place in the world, which isn't as bad as she once thought. She decides that maybe her husband really does love her and she finds that even though everyone has their flaws, all you can do is `keep on truckin'.This is the first book of Anne Tyler's that I have read and I found that is was simple but enjoyable. Not much happened in the book, but the characters were very descriptive and interesting. I especially enjoyed reading about Charlotte's very large mother who brought along her wooden lawn chair wherever she went and embarrassed Charlotte horribly. I also enjoyed reading about her husband's dysfunctional family and all the different tenants that temporarily stayed with Charlotte and her husband. On the whole this was an entertaining book, but I think more time should have been spent on Charlotte and Jake's journey together.
Rating:
Summary: A very entertaining book!
Review: Earthly Possessions is a novel about a middle-aged woman named Charlotte Emory. She has lived in the same dusty, mildewed house her whole life and has never left the premises of the small, barren town she calls home. Her husband is a very controlling and overbearing man, and she thinks he only married her out of ease. She is very bored in her life and marriage and although she thinks about leaving her husband constantly, she can never quite bring herself to take the final step and walk out the door. This is probably because she has always depended on other people to lead her through life and can't imagine what she would do if she had to make decisions on her own for the first time. And then one day she finds encouragement from an unlikely place. While she is pouring a bowl of cereal a gold pendant comes out of the cereal box and lands in her bowl. The pendant is labeled 'keep on truckin' and she takes this as a sign that this is the day she needs to leave her husband. Ironically, this same day, she makes a trip to the bank and a young, cocky male who is headed across the country takes her hostage. Charlotte thinks this is just another bad event in the horrible series of her life, but it turns out to be the journey of a lifetime. Jake, the young man who kidnaps Charlotte, is really not a bad person at all, but he has just had a very rough and unlucky life. Charlotte and Jake end up learning a lot from each other and become close on their trip. She finally meets some interesting characters totally different from the people in her hometown who are all the alike. She not only observes new scenery, but also develops a whole new sense of self. She realizes her place in the world, which isn't as bad as she once thought. She decides that maybe her husband really does love her and she finds that even though everyone has their flaws, all you can do is 'keep on truckin'. This is the first book of Anne Tyler's that I have read and I found that is was simple but enjoyable. Not much happened in the book, but the characters were very descriptive and interesting. I especially enjoyed reading about Charlotte's very large mother who brought along her wooden lawn chair wherever she went and embarrassed Charlotte horribly. I also enjoyed reading about her husband's dysfunctional family and all the different tenants that temporarily stayed with Charlotte and her husband. On the whole this was an entertaining book, but I think more time should have been spent on Charlotte and Jake's journey together.
Rating:
Summary: Good Story
Review: I believe his is probably one of Anne Tyler's best books the people are so imaginative.
Rating:
Summary: Best Tyler I've read so far
Review: I have read only a few of Tyler's books, but this one is my favourite so far. Like Breathing Lessons, she creates some imaginative characters that are somehow not quite in sync with the rest of the world -- or at least not "my" world. With each chapter flipping back to the past and then to the present, bizarre events happening throughout, by the end of the novel the characters aren't so strange anymore. Our female lead gets taken hostage by a not-so-seasoned bank robber at the same time she has decided to leave her husband. This story tells of their journey away from ties that bind, albeit different trials and tribulations. An easy read but a tale you won't soon forget
Rating: 
Summary: The quirky Tyler characters are somehow appealing.
Review: I read 1-2 Anne Tyler books a year. The same themes repeat - feeling disconnected or dissatisfied with life but eventually learning to love what you make of what life has given you. I loved the descriptions of the various "tenants" coming in and out of the home. I can always picture Ms.Tyler's people and places.
Rating: 
Summary: Horribly Bland and Depressing
Review: I read this book in my high school AP english class for independent study and could not believe that it had such a high rating on this website. This was one of the worst books I have ever read. The charcters were not realistic at all. They were all complacent, pathetic, and sad. Who could possibly sympathize with Charlotte?? She is a worthless person who abandons the commitments she has made to her family and her children and doesn't really care. She is so apathetic and egotistical that other people don't seem to matter to her. Albeit, her life certainly isn't perfect but she seriously needs to be on Prozac! And the other charcters, a criminal and a naive pregnant fourteen-year old who wears a pink sundress. Just pathetic! I can't even talk anymore about how atrocious this work was because it is making me angry to just have to write this in the first place. Please, find a book with imagination and character. Go somewhere else!
Rating:
Summary: Great book, easy to read and enjoy!
Review: I think this is a most fantastic book. This is the first and only book I have read by Anne Tyler yet but it would definitely encourage me to read another. I read this book because I had been looking forward to seeing the HBO movie with Stephen Dorff (greatest actor on earth baby!) and not surprisingly they were very different from each other but both VERY good. I reccommend both the book and film highly!
Rating:
Summary: A wonderful if unexpected journey!
Review: Several years ago I read my first Anne Tyler book, Ladder of Years, and became a devoted fan of this author's books. Catching up on some earlier titles,I have just finished another one of her books, Earthly Possessions. And once again this author has captivated me and tugged at my heartstrings. Earthly Possessions focuses on two of Tyler's most endearing characters, Charlotte Emory and Jake. Charlotte is at a bank one day when Jake bungles a robbery. Holding Charlotte as his hostage and with 200 $1 bills in his pocket from the robbery, he steals a car and the two set off to find Jake's pregnant girlfriend somewhere in Florida. What may appear as a horrific kidnapping to others in the bank, provides Charolotte with an exciting adventure, once she knows she won't be harmed in anyway. Unfortunately Charlotte has never set foot outside of her small hometown and was at the bank to withdraw her life savings in order to run away from her husband. As Charlotte and Jake travel South, with the police searching for them, Charlotte reflects on her life and earthly posessions till the ending which is thought provoking and poignant. The end of the book and some other parts are reminiscent of some cental themes which Tyler seems to explore in many of her books. But the author relying on tried and true themes never seems to matter to me when I read Anne Tyler as once again she introduces me to quirky and memorable characters who stay with me long after I've finished the book
Rating:
Summary: I like that it deals with real people in real situations.
Review: The book was well written, however; I was frustrated by the main characters unwillingness to do something about the problems she faced.
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