Rating: 
Summary: My vote is "awesome"
Review: After virtually thumbing through the other reviews listed here, I can see that a potential buyer is left with a 50/50 rating. Is this book awesome or does it suck?
Just like beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so is a good read. If you have had a "what would have been" experience in your life, wondering what happened to so-and-so and if you could go back in time would you have made another decision, in regards to love, then I think you will enjoy this book. Yes, there is some tragic-ness in it. But such is life. I didn't draw a line to Wuthering Heights but now that I see it mentioned, I can see the parallel. If you enjoy love stories that aren't traditional but rather human, this book is for you too.
Because I have been a person who had thoughts about my past and because I am not into fairy-tale romance books, I thoroughly enjoyed reading Here On Earth. I felt it to be well-written and worth the time, energy and money I invested to buy and read it.
I write this review because I also believe that you, another reader, will too.
Rating:
Summary: "Here on Earth" is an intricate and compelling read!!!!
Review: Dont expect to visit Jenkinstown with March Murray and daughter Gwen, and return unscathed.
"Here on Earth" weaves webs of intrigue, drawing the reader deeper into it's plot word by word.
There are no one dimensonal characters; only complex, believable people that defy prejudgement.
Hate their decisions, loathe their behaivors, pity their situations, but understand each is fueled by life's causes and effects. Alice Hoffman gifts her readers with sensory descriptions of landscape and psyche.
Each page and each character explode with emotion and leaves the peruser shaking with empathy and sentiment. Read this book.
Experience Jenkinstown.
Meet March, Hollis, Gwen, and Hank and the other cast that inhabits their worlds.
Come away gasping for breath.
Be haunted and changed by the journey long after you return "Here on Earth" to the shelf.
The trip awaits you!!!!!!
Rating: 
Summary: Better Hoffman Books Than This
Review: Flat characters, predictable storyline, plodding chapters--a frustrating and unsatisfying read. Unless you are a dedicated Hoffman fan, I recommend skipping this book. Instead, I highly suggest "Blackbird House," which better reflects her skills as a storyteller.
Rating:
Summary: Love vs. Marriage, Choices and their consequences
Review: I bought this book over a year ago intending to read it. I am an avid Vampire book fan, but the plot to this book interested me. I picked it up 2 days ago and I could not put it down. It takes a long time to learn in life that every choice that you make has a consequence. That when you do what you believe you need to do for yourself without thought for any others, that there may be people around you affected by your choice. Sometimes you can not even see what you are doing to those around you. There was no point in this book where I felt that March was pathetic. I saw her in the same way that Judge did, she has been sleepwalking. Her inner arguments rationalizing her behavior and behavior of others is something that she truly believes. She also believes in a little boy and continues to search for that same little boy in who is now a man.
Gwen's strength and ambition is uncanny, she in an admirable character that you believe in throughout. Hank is a man, the kind who learned from his family situation and who - regardless of all that ever happened - always paid his respect.
Can anyone truly dislike Hollis? I found myself searching for him in his adulthood - the same way that March did. Hollis truly is the victim. I hope I didn't give too much away, I am originally from the same area in New England that the book is set in, and the weather and lifestyle played a huge part in the story overall. I kept waiting for something really bad to happen. But what did happen (without spoiling the plot) was incredible from a literary standpoint. Where do some people gain peace? Does Peace exist in life? What are relationships all about anyway?
Highly reccomended.
Rating:
Summary: B-o-r-i-n-g!
Review: I came across this book at a garage sale, and because it said it was one of Oprah's Book Club selections, I couldnt wait to read it. Ugh. I struggled through, and thought it was the worst thing I've ever read. The whole concept was boring, the writing was boring, and I'd say...'dont bother'. I am one that has to finish something once started..so this was torture. I kept thinking that its going to get better, and the only halfway decent part was at the very end. I thought this story was most unbelievable. Dont waste your time and money!
Rating:
Summary: B-o-r-i-n-g!
Review: I came across this book at a garage sale, and because it said it was one of Oprah's Book Club selections, I couldnt wait to read it. Ugh. I struggled through, and thought it was the worst thing I've ever read. The whole concept was boring, the writing was boring, and I'd say...'dont bother'. I am one that has to finish something once started..so this was torture. I kept thinking that its going to get better, and the only halfway decent part was at the very end. I thought this story was most unbelievable. Dont waste your time and money!
Rating:
Summary: Wow
Review: I can't comprehend anyone not falling head over for this book. This is one of a handful I can read every year and have it grab a hold of me even more strongly than the first time. It's a simple message - that love is messy and complicated and that judging someone for falling in or out of it or sticking with someone for no apparent reason is simplistic and naive. Love changes. It grows or withers away or hits you over the head when you least expect it. It can haunt you.
Especially touching if you have ever known a damaged soul. March and her father were right not to just dismiss Hollis as a loser as others apparently had his entire life. The only problem was whatever had happened in his past had already done too much damage (as Alan and his friends would continue to do.) It had turned his soul to stone. And as the novel shows a person without a soul can be very dangerous indeed. The fact that Alice Hoffman makes us hate and feel for him at the same time just shows what a wonderful writer she is.
One of the best.
Rating:
Summary: A Sad and Compelling Story
Review: I finished this book last night and I still can't get the sad story of March and Hollis out of my mind and heart. A book such as this one draws you in, makes you feel so much for the characters that it's hard to let them go. I found myself having a love-hate relationship with the character of Hollis (the so-called Heathcliff character); it seems as though most people who read this book really grew to hate Hollis. In my opinion, it's only a great author who can make you feel sympathy for the villain, and that is exactly what the author made me feel for Hollis. Although his behaviour becomes despicable and inexcusable, I couldn't help seeing him as a broken man; the author skillfully does this by focusing on memories of him as a boy. I did find myself becoming frustrated with March at times; the way she ignores her daughter and seems to become completely unaware of what is going on around her. The end of the book was particularly poignant for me. For all of those who had trouble understanding why March would stay with someone like Hollis, I think the author explains it all very well in the last chapter. One of my favorite lines in the book: If this is love, they better call it something else. This is a great book by a great writer.
Rating:
Summary: Here on Earth by Alice Hoffman
Review: I found this book to be a great psychological thriller, sad but great. When March and her daughter Gwen take a trip to the mother's childhood home of near Boston, little do they know what's ahead of them. The man she once loved just isn't the same
as he used to be. I'd recommend this book to one and all:)
Rating: 
Summary: Hoffman, what happened?
Review: I loved "Practical Magic" and "Turtle Moon", but this book was such a disappointment. Nothing about how March reacted to Hollis made any sense, beyond her girlhood dreams about what might-have-been. If he'd been waiting for her all his life, he had a funny way of showing it. And nothing that we knew about March would prepare us for how downright silly she is. The man is an abusive creep!
Some of the writing was her usual wonderful(The entire first chapter, for example), but I never got over the Kathy/Heathcliff/Wuthering Heights story. There was something ridiculous about them, too. Way too much melodrama, not enough insight.
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