Rating: 
Summary: A fine treatment of a wolf-man.
Review: A divorcee rescues a wolf-man, raised by wolves, from a mental institution. Once you accept the premise, the wolf-man is done very well, with feeling, but without sentimentality. Hoffman too often settles for the facile in her plot and character development for this to be a genuinely good book, nor by design, is it charming like some other Hoffman books, but it is a very decent read.
Rating:
Summary: A fine treatment of a wolf-man.
Review: A divorcee rescues a wolf-man, raised by wolves, from a mental institution. Once you accept the premise, the wolf-man is done very well, with feeling, but without sentimentality. Hoffman too often settles for the facile in her plot and character development for this to be a genuinely good book, nor by design, is it charming like some other Hoffman books, but it is a very decent read.
Rating: 
Summary: MY FAVORITE BOOK!!
Review: After I read At Risk, I wanted to read annother book by Alice Hoffman. When I read this back cover of Second Nature, I automatically felt like this would be some thing I would like. I loved it! It was such a strange, magical story, with tons of romance that kept me hooked! What an awesome book!
Rating:
Summary: MY FAVORITE BOOK!!
Review: After I read At Risk, I wanted to read annother book by Alice Hoffman. When I read this back cover of Second Nature, I automatically felt like this would be some thing I would like. I loved it! It was such a strange, magical story, with tons of romance that kept me hooked! What an awesome book!
Rating:
Summary: A complex novel that fails to deliver.
Review: Alice Hoffman attempts to combine many elements in this short novel. At the center is the wolf man (Stephen) who is obviously fantasy and a particularly unbelievable one at that. Surrounding the wolf man story line is a multileveled relationship drama. Finally, toward the end of the novel is a touch of whodunnit. The main character Robin is going through a divorce when her life is intersected with that of Stephen. In addition to her divorce, she also finds that her relationships with her son and her best friend become strained when her son begins dating the best friend's daughter. What is lacking in this novel is any type of true revelations or dramatic changes by the characters. In the end, Robin's personality and motivations are unchanged by her experiences with the wolf man and the reader is left unmoved.
Rating: 
Summary: Totally unbelievable and full of so many holes it leaks
Review: Almost from the beginning this book grated on my nerves and I regularly wanted to through it against the wall. (Had to read it for a class). We are supposed to believe the main character, Robin, could walk into a hospital in New York City and walk out with its most famous patient, the wolfman, and nobody, not a single soul, noticed. Not the hospital, not the guards who were transferring him to another mental institution and obligingly removed his handcuffs at Robin's request, not the hospital at which he never arrived. In fact, no one notices Stephen is missing until Robin introduces him to her brother, who was, by the way, Stephen's shrink in NYC. The wolfman, during his time with Robin, remembers being, at 3 1/2, the only survivor of a plane crash in which his parents were killed. A she-wolf with maternal instincts suckled him with her other cubs and he became part of the pack. He even picks up some stone age weapons skills along the way to compensate for the lack of big teeth and claws. Magically
Rating: 
Summary: Uplifting and Magical! A Modern-Day Fairy Tale
Review: From the first page to the last, this book turned out to be more than an over-the-summer english assignment. It's Magical! It's creative! It's absolutely wonderful! I am, however, unfamiliar with most of Hoffman's work, and for the first novel I have read by her, it turned out to be a heartfelt favorite. It's the story of a middle-aged women, her son, her son's father whom she is seperated, and an almost mythical stranger. Wonderful for younger teenagers, and people who just want to read an uplifting story.
Rating:
Summary: well written... made for an enjoyable weekend
Review: I first read Alice Hoffmans "Here on Earth" and enjoyed it a great deal. When I saw this book while shopping for something else I thought I would give it a try. I'm glad I did. Ms. Hoffman has a talent for describing the sourrounding events and the thoughts of her characters. Her character development and the progression of events kept me interested and the end was satisfying and not so "far fetched" as to unbelievable. I read this book on a rainy weekend between laundry and house work and on monday when I went back to work I felt I had spent the weekend very well indead.
Rating: 
Summary: Can I review if I didn't finish the book?
Review: I got about 3/4 of the way through but just lost interest. I kept thinking I was missing something. Did this woman (main character) who was going through a divorce and being much harrassed by the local police (having a glovebox filled with citations), a teenage son and cash flow problems really just show up at a hospital and walk out with a wolfman who asked her to take him home? Then she sets him up in her guest room and teaches him to read by leaving books with him and a few pages later he is so transformed as to be her guest at a friend's barbeque! Too many holes and leaps of faith for me.
Rating:
Summary: Too Unbelievable for me
Review: I Have read Alice Hoffman before and I truly enjoy her work but this story was too unrealistic and dissapointing. I was willing to give the author creative license with the story of Stephen the Wolfman but she left too many questions unanswered. Here are a few but there are more:Why was Robin able to walk right out of the hospital with Stephen and nobody ever questioned his whereabouts? Why did the guard unlock the handcuffs so quickly on just Robin's say so? Why did Robin want to bring him into her household while she was going through a messy divorce and money problems? How come Stephen learned to read, write and play chess so quickly? I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone but I do recommend reading "Local Girls" also by Ms. Hoffman. Its a better story and truly shows how much talent Ms. Hoffman has.
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