Buzzword-A-Thon: Where

Unexpected Read-A-Thon: Read something that's been on your TBR since 2018 or earlier

I'm in the minority on this one, because this book has great reviews and people seem to love it. I think I read a different book then everyone else, because this book was not good.

Where The Heart Is by Billie Letts is about 17 year old Novalee Nation who's seven months pregnant and has just been abandoned at a Wal-Mart by her baby daddy.

The best way to describe Where The Heart Is, is its a Tyler Perry play for white people. Its overly dramatic with dark subject matter like child abuse, poverty and grief being handled in the most child like and ham handed way possible. Everything is tied up in a nice little bow at the end. Novalee was such a simpleton and idiot that I kept rooting for her to get hit by a bus. I get it Forrest Gump made everyone want to write a book about a loveable idiot but Novalee is no Forrest Gump. Forrest Gump is THE BEST and I will fight anyone who disagrees.

I had planned to watch the movie to this book which stars one of my favorite actresses Natalie Portman but I don't think I'll be able to do it. Where The Heart Is was a super fast read so that's why I gave it 2 Stars instead of 1 but I didn't enjoy this book any way. Maybe I waited too long to read it or maybe I was never gonna like it.

I don't recommend Where The Heart Is

A story that brings the meaning of resilience to life. I have to give this one five stars because MC, Novalee's life comes full circle and leaves the reader satisfied like no other story I have read.

4.25 Stars

I've always enjoyed this movie so when I found out it was an adaptation, I had to read the book as well! I enjoyed that I got a more in depth look at some of the characters but I found that the movie pieced scenes together in a better way and made small changes to make it a more logical story overall with better flow while still staying true to the heart of the story so for that reason I'd probably just recommend the movie over the book. I did find that there were some absolutely great and memorable lines of character dialogue in here though!

the movie sucks but the book is so good

3/16/21: Ahh I love this book so much. There's just something so sweet about Novalee despite all the hardships she's had to deal with. It's not even that she makes the best of any situation, it's that she does what she can with what she has, and it never changed who she was at heart. This is a pretty short book for something ranging over 7 years, but it really works here, because had everything awful that happened to her happened all at once in a year's time, it would be too dramatic to be realistic. But everyone has some good years mixed with some bad times, and that's what we get with this book. It just makes me happy.


6/2/15: I have no words for how much I loved this story. I remember watching the movie years and years ago, but I just recently learned it was based off a book. Novalee has had to deal with so much in her life, but she never let it change a thing about her kind heart. I can forsee myself re-reading this again in the future.

I really enjoyed this book. It was a quick read, and even though some of the subject matter was a little heavy, for the most part this was a light-hearted book. When the subject matter was heavier, I thought the author did a wonderful job writing about those subjects without making anything feel forced or sappy.

I read some of the other reviews on goodreads that said people couldn't stand how naive Novalee was. I think that was the whole point of the book. She did make some stupid decisions because she was young and naive, but she matured throughout the book and the reader got to see her progress.

The names were a little unbelievable but they added to the charm of the book.

The movie stays very true to the book. I saw the movie first, and I did not notice any major differences that annoyed me. The changes I did notice were more like combining events. Also, I don't remember Moses Whitecotton in the movie, but I haven't seen it in years and that might be why.

I loved the characters in this book so much ❤️❤️❤️

This is an Oprah recommended book which is why I began it. I didn't finish it --- a rare thing for me, but really, I couldn't spend any more time with the naive, starry-eyed, po' white trash heroine. She's 17, pregnant, and has been abandoned at a Walmart by her do-wrong boyfriend. When she gets her hands on some money the first thing she does is turn it over to her mother who abandoned her when she was nine (or something). Loser Mom read about her daughter in the paper because daughter had her baby in Walmart and the Walmart baby became great advertising. Obviously the heroine (whose name I'm blocking on) will reconcile lots of arbitrary people because her generous spirit shines through. Hopefully she will also become a little bit smarter about people who use her (boyfriend, mom, etc), but thankfully I won't have take that journey with her. That's the great thing about books. You can put them down and walk away from them.

(Spoiler alert!)
Started out as okay with the whole girl-living-in-Walmart theme, but the part about her friend's kids being molested and the graphic description was very unexpected and out of place, in my opinion. Ruined the book for me. Tried to read another of her books to give her another shot, and that one started out with a mother dog and her newborn pups getting run over in the road! I couldn't get past that part, either.

One of my favorite books of all time.

Enjoying read.

There are a few books and authors that I've read over the last twenty-five years or so that have stuck with me. Judy Blume's Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. J.K. Rowling (for obvious reasons). Sophie Kinsella's effortlessly girlish romances saturated with hilarious mishaps. Jodi Picoult's Small Great Things. Mohsin Hamid's raw and almost painfully honest views of the world and the people who inhabit it. Billie Letts' debut novel, Where the Heart is.

This book stuck in my guts. It was like drinking warm milk and honey at first, but then, it became the inevitable stomach-ache that comes after drinking too much of the sweet drink. It was the character's heartaches that roped me in and the way she steadfastly held onto her dreams that kept me going. It was my fear for Novalee that gave me that stomach ache; maybe because I could see so much of myself inside of her, and I was afraid that she'd never be able to escape the bad that seemed to dog her steps no matter how fast she ran.

Frightfully pregnant and 17, Novalee is miserable. She's large and most definitely not in charge, and her flip flops have just disappeared through the broken floor of her boyfriend's trashed out car. On the road with Willy Jack, boyfriend and the father of the ever-growing baby in her cumbersome belly, Novalee can't wait to put her pudgy toes right into the sandy beaches of California, and she's all to happy to leave Tennessee in the dust. Begging Willy Jack to pull over at a Wal-Mart so she can clear her bladder and buy a new pair of shoes for her swollen feet, Novalee waddles in to handle business. But when she waddles out, she is dismayed to learn that Willy Jack has abandoned her, driving away and leaving her alone in his dirty rearview mirror.

Too overwhelmed to try and come up with any real plan, Novalee flits around the Wal-Mart and as is her spunky personality's custom, she begins to make friends. Sister Husband is eccentric and pushy, cramming photocopied pages from the Bible into the hands of those she believes needs them. Moses Whitecotton is both wise and sincere, and urges Novalee to give her child a name that means something. Benny Goodluck decides so spread some of his blessings to Novalee and gifts her a small tree, promising her that as long as the tree flourishes, so will she. But the day eventually comes to a close, and without any other prospect in sight, Novalee bunks down in the Oklahoma Wal-Mart for the night, making sure to keep a detailed record of all the supplies she uses so she can pay the company back every cent.

As the weeks pass and Novalee becomes a veritable resident at the Wal-Mart, she (to her horror) eventually gives birth somewhere right around Aisle 9. A quirky friend she met at the library, the introverted but interesting Forney, helps her deliver a beautiful baby girl that Novalee names Americus. The name seems to be strong enough and laced with enough meaning to create good fortune for her brand new daughter, and Wal-Mart provides Novalee with a little fame and fortune all of her own. As a Wal-Mart employee by day and a budding photographer by night, the new mother and her sweet daughter move forward in the attempts at carving out a nice and quiet spot of life for themselves among the widespread plains of Oklahoma. 

Weeks transition into months, and months into years. . . and Novalee grows just as her daughter Americus does. Armed with good friends and sweet tea, Novalee does her best to be a woman that her daughter can look up to and be proud of. But when the blast from the past of Willie Jack's voice crooning through the radio airwaves catches Novalee's attention, she has to wonder -- where is the father of her baby? Where has he been? Why did he leave her? The invisible strings connecting her to her troubled and naive past grow taut, and Novalee has a hard time seeing the new strands of love that connect her to the here and now. 

Where the Heart Is is one of those feel-good stories that you can read again and again without tiring of them. Sinking into this book is like curling up in a familiar and worn-out arm chair with a threadbare blanket over your knees and a warm coffee in your hand -- it truly feels like home. I give the book 4.5 of 5 stars, and recommend it to lovers of fiction, the underdog, and good ole' Southern living. Readers can also enjoy this book in it's film adaptation, starring Natalie Portman as Novalee Nation.