This was one of those books I picked up a long time ago and it's been sitting on my shelf collecting dust. Modern American fiction/chick lit is not exactly my favorite these days, and this book reinforced why I don't care for it.

In Here on Earth, a married woman with a 15 year old daughter returns to her hometown in Massachusetts. The reason for the trip is the funeral of the family housekeeper, who was really the woman who raised her, since her own mother died when she was young. While there, she rekindles a flame with a man who was also raised in her home, only to find out that the relationship is wrong on so many levels.

It had a story that could have at least made it a page turner, but the writing ended up being more chick-lit than thriller. Not my cup of tea.

Okay... can I just say... "Wow. Wow. Wow."

Alice Hoffman really makes me happy. She's full of fanciful quirk -- not the harsh, dry quirk of carefully selected oddness, but a more delightful whimsy that seems to spring straight from the emotional side of nature.

This book really won my heart, even though the ending was contrived and lacking in climax, which honestly, I'd half-expected since this book falls somewhere under the mainstream/literary spectrum. Okay, okay -- I saw her setting the climax up a mile away... but this kind of slap-bang happy ending really needs more set up than other, more logically likely endings. And besides the less-than-immaculate setup, she SKIPPED THE ACTUAL CLIMAX. For shame!

So we all know that endings are the hardest part, and for a book this wonderful, okay, I can't help loving the book anyway, but GOSH DARN IT, you just don't skip such a critical juncture in the book, especially when you've been hopping in and out of that character's POV for the entirety of the novel. There's just no excuse for that. And even if she wanted to do it from another POV, at least show us the other character there *as it happens* instead of summarizing the event later! Arg.

Oh, speaking of POV, I really loved the way that the narrative effortlessly hops in and out of the entire town's POVs, without losing the reader's comprehension or interest. Flawlessly done, and most engaging and enjoyable!

Even with its faults, this was *such* a fun magical realism adventure. I think I'll buy it for my collection.

3.25 stars
This is a hard book for me to review--I loved the descriptive writing, but hated almost all of the characters. About halfway thru, as the story got darker & dark, I got hooked and couldn't put it down. I have to admit, it didn't end the way I thought it was going to...

I first read this when it was published in 1997 and, in 2023, I remembered nothing about it except that I enjoyed it.. After 26 years, I thought I would revisit it. The story is multi threaded with many well-drawn and interesting characters. Alice Hoffman is a good technical writer and a great storyteller. And this story was set in New England, which is always a plus for me.

I love the magical overtones in Alice Hoffmans books and this one was no exception. Unfortunately, magical thinking does not work for March, the main character.

I don’t understand this book - it had enough there that it could have been good, but it’s like she decided halfway through that she couldn’t be bothered with writing it, instead just spinning in circles before crashing it with no closure on a single thread in the story. Honestly the only words I have are stupid, lazy, disappointing.

Two stars because I did want that closure, I was interested in the stories and characters, even if I didn’t particularly like most of them. What was the point of any of it?

I loved Alice Hoffman's novel, Practical Magic, but this book was just okay for me. I thought there were too many unanswered questions regarding the two main characters. For instance, Hollis is saved from a life on the streets of Boston and brought back to a small town where he is treated as a family member by everyone except his "older brother." However, as a adult, Hollis seems to hate everyone and lors his wealth over everyone in town. Why does his adopted sister, and love-obsession, March, not realize that Hollis is really a very twisted individual - even though she is duly warned by several people. The book just didn't ring true to me.

This book is well written with characters that draw you in and anger you all at the same time. March's daughter, Gwen, and her nephew, Hank, were my favorite characters...and the foxes take a close second.

Congrats Here on Earth, you win the title of my leave favorite book of all time. Never in my life have I loathed a book so much. We are reading this book for my book club this month, and from the start I was skeptical. You know I love Oprah, but one thing I know for sure is that we do not have the same taste in books. Oprah picked this book as her book club pick back in 1998 and I honestly don't know what she was thinking. The book itself is written beautifully - I mean thank goodness - because the characters and the story is just so damn depressing I don't know if I could have made it through. Its about a woman and her daughter who return to the mother's hometown to attend a funeral. The mother rekindles her love with a old flame, Hollis, who is hands down the worst character I have ever read in a book ever. I know the book has beautiful metaphors- and surely it will provide a great deal of discussion during book club- but I finished the book this morning and I still can't shake the feeling it left me in: totally and utterly depressed. One star Here on Earth, and that's only for the writing.

Plot perhaps had possibilities, but the characters are all over the map and it was hard to feel anything except dismay...at their weakness, lack of committment, lack of decency, lack of anything redeemable in their person. One character starts out as tragic with the promise of greater things and he ends up doing something so despicable one just shakes their head as to what Hoffman was trying to accomplish with the earlier character development. The female characters are, for the most part, weak...turning their heads the other way when one is in need, giving up a real life to pretend with a married man, giving in to a REALLY bad man because he's good in bed. This is not a love story of any kind (dark or otherwise). It's about lust. And a woman's slavery to it. Period.

This is a dark romance. A woman goes back to her home town for a funeral, taking her teenage daughter with her. The woman comes back into contact with an old lover who had a strange hold over her when she was younger. It's an oddly compelling story.

I picked up this book because I loved the Practical Magic books. While it still has Hoffman’s lovable characters and cheeky descriptions of New England, I can’t rate the book any higher than 2.

I can’t empathize with the main character and honestly, I don’t believe her. She isn’t well-developed. It isn’t obvious who she really is other than, as her father’s friend describes her “a spoiled girl whose father denied her nothing.”

The horrors of the turn from love to abusive relationship are plausible enough, but there are some holes in the story with the transition from “quick funeral trip” to “we live here now.”

I know this is supposed to be a Wuthering Heights set in modern day, but I just didn’t feel the love and passion. Perhaps you’re supposed to read WH just before this, so Hoffman can borrow some character development ;)

I do really love many of the characters, as I have in many of Hoffmans novels. But watching the main character ruin her life when it all seemed very forced, wasn’t very satisfying.