This book was pretty much a worthless piece of fluff. Anything this book does, any Barbara Kingsolver book will do about 2000 times better. This book is right on the border of dreadful.

I must have gotten this book out of the trash. I hope I didn't pay even 20 cents for it at the Social Services League. Maybe I got it on $5 bag day at the Friends of the Library book sale. All I can say is that any amount I paid for this book was TOO MUCH!

I read it when I was on a trip. I read it in airports and on airplanes and in hotel rooms. I left it behind in my hotel room when I checked out. I didn't want to put it in the trash can, but I sure as hell didn't want to tote it home. Maybe the person who cleaned my room found it and her/his life was changed in some positive way. I hope so. All it did for me was keep me from dwelling on the possibility of a plane crash.

This is one of the Opra's book club books, which is kind of surprising because some of the books in her club are actually decent. Not this one.

This book was horrible, if I could give it half a star I would. It's really unrealistic, if someone was living in a Wal Mart in real life, they'd be arrested, not given a job. And I thought Forney was a complete loser & Novalee was dumb to be so attracted to him, & I think the author had way too much fun thinking of ways that God could punish Willy Jack, the loser father of the baby, because all these horrible things happen to him. It makes teenage motherhood look glamorous & sends the message that if you get into the situation that Novalee did everyone will love you & embrace you. And one last thing, I thought "Americus" was a really stupid name for the baby.

The writing is fine, but the story was too saccharine and preposterous for me. I’m not found of romance and fluffy fiction so I struggled through most of it. I decided to finish it only because it was part of a challenge. 1.5 stars.

Ahhhh such a great feel-good book, but NOT, at the same time. Novalee definitely has experienced her share of heartbreak and sadness, but she trucks on and always comes out okay on the other side. I have always loved this movie and the book was wonderful as well! I was happy to see that the movie followed very closely with the book.

Having seen the movie several times I already really knew this story. This book came out when I was only 5 years old and it is crazy that it has taken me this long to pick it up.

I enjoyed it for the most part! The book gives a lot more detail character wise than the movie which was nice on occasion, but I thought the movie did a good job editing the characters especially Willy Jack; there was some unneeded scenes with him.

Having said that this story is filled with great side characters. Moses and Certain are a favorite along with quirky Sister Husband. The story as a whole is engaging and heart warming. It also doesn't shy away from consequences of life choices.

I read this book in high school and it sparked an interest in reading that was pretty much non-existent until then. Thanks Miss Illingworth! I also saw this movie, and although it was cute, I am much more connected to Letts's fabulous characters as they were described on paper. She has a true gift of making you connect with the people in her stories. Their "real-ness" is something to be applauded.

Honestly, the only thing I enjoyed about this book was that it was an easy read, which made the process of finishing it quick and slightly less painful. Only slightly, though, because this book was pretty much a waste of my time. I got nothing out of this story whatsoever. Novalee is the least inspiring protagonist I've ever had to follow, and the breaks to Willy Jack's story line came as a relief, despite the fact that he's meant to be a secondary character.

I don't understand the choice to make this book first person; sure, it would be weird to switch between Novalee and Willy Jack's perspective if it was in first, but for the purpose of the novel I think third person was ineffective. The audience is supposed to be following Novalee on an emotional journey, and yet Novalee doesn't seem to react to anything for more than a paragraph. It's as if groundbreaking moments have little effect on her, which I found to be incredibly annoying.

The plot development in this novel was sporadic at best, moving slowly for some chapters and then jumping ahead two months for the next. It was inconsistent and I think it hindered the flow of the novel. I found myself struggling to envision how Novalee managed to get from point A to point B way too often, and honestly it seems like the author skipped these parts simply so she wouldn't have to provide an explanation (for example, the two months after Americus is born isn't even touched on, and details on how Novalee settled in to Walmart, how she felt about the press going after her, and Mama Nell's betrayal are left out).

Overall, this book was a disappointment. I don't know what Oprah was on about when she recommended it.

It's so weird, but I could have sworn when I found this book on sale at a thrift shop that I had read it before. I know I used to own it. And I know I started it. I also saw the movie version a few years back. So when I started what I thought was a RE-read, I was totally caught off guard; I had never read it!

Aside from a little outdatedness (not old enough to be retro, or new enough to be current), I enjoyed it enough to read the whole thing.

The writing is filled with wonderful bits of prose, and the story moves along nicely. There are a few moments I felt weren't necessary to the storyline, but overall it is a sweet story, filled with promise and love and friendship found in the oddest places. The setting allows the reader to become saturated by small-town life, and the ending pleasantly (although a tad predictably) comes full circle, with all wrapped up at the end.

Now. Regarding age: I saw this touted somewhere as a young adult, and when one of my middle school students told me she had read it, I was sort of shocked. As a teacher, I tend to fall on the conservative line for my young readers, both with my suggestions, and with my own writing. I feel that it is ultimately up to the parent to decide what should or should not be read; what their child can handle. But this book, honestly...I feel it belongs to ages 16 and up. There is a graphic scene that totally shocked me, and some of the language is pretty brutal. I can take the language, but violent sexual scenes? Not really in the best interest of your 8th grader.

Just my advice.

I thought that this book was ALRIGHT. It wasn't the best book ever, but it wasn't the worst book ever. There were highs and lows, from the highs being the giant cast of characters, with new characters being introduced in almost every other paragraph. The characters personalities being shaped and solidified with only one or two exchanges of dialogue, I thought that was really cool, but that was about all I thought of it.

The characters themselves were extremely profound and had very good chemistry with each other in the book, but the setting and the conflicts in the book were not as great. The book itself felt like a chick-flick, everything in the end works out for the main character and basically love triumphs all. I don't really like that kind cliche, it just doesn't sit that well with me.

The few parts of the plat that I DID like were the few parts about Willy Jack. I believe he finally got what was coming to him by leaving Novalee at the Walmart, by going to prison and getting repeatedly raped. But later on in the book (near the end), he ended up losing his legs, which he definitely didn't deserve. Karma slapped him too hard I guess. All in all the book was fine, but a bit too cliche for my taste. If you're into chick flicks than you'll like the book.

4.5/5 stars
“Novalee smiled then at her seventeen-year-old self turning on the other side of the rain-streaked glass and she tried to hold her there. But the girl spun away into the light, the place where her history began.”

I don’t know what to say here. I read this book thinking it’d be an easy southern read and that’s not what I got. The first 300 pages (3/4 of the book) are light-hearted stories while still traumatic about a girl becoming a woman by giving birth in a Walmart after being abandoned there. It proceeds to after that portion get very overtly traumatic (think Bastard out of Carolina) and it was never hinted this would be the case. I’ve talked to people who’ve seen the movie, and the raping of the children was never mentioned. That scene, and the additional details and future “moving on” is why I gave it two stars instead of the original three I had planned based on it being slightly boring and not memorable, and I feel like the author knew that so they decided to traumatize the reader like they did with this overly-detailed scene and that was too much for me.

I admit my review is a little skewed as I had seen the movie several times before ever reading this book. I think that made the book a little less exciting, hence the 3 stars. I did however enjoy reading it and noting all the differences between the book and the movie. I think that I like the book better, as usual. I still found it satisfactory enough that I read it quite quickly, by my standards. It only took me about a week to complete. I was disappointed that the book seemed like it would be for an older audience, I would hope that my daughter would someday read it as the message is good. However, I think she probably needs to wait until well into her teens as the book contains some language, sexual content and other things that I would deem only appropriate for an older audience. There are several lessons in the book that I find important for any girl or woman to understand, and I think the author teaches them well through her characters. I probably won't read this again, but I did enjoy it.