Victoria's Reviews > Here on Earth

** spoiler alert ** Unfortunately, this is the first Alice Hoffman novel I read...I only forged ahead to a couple of her other works through encouragement from my aunt.

At first the book seemed slightly promising; a woman and her daughter returning to a childhood home that holds a lot of memories. But very quickly, I realized I really didn't like March. She seemed whiny, indecisive, and just very lost in general. And then, as soon as we started getting the picture on Hollis, the bad taste in my mouth got worse. An dark, suave, but highly abusive, insecure, and often downright nasty man? And March is still passionately in love with this guy?

Their relationship grew more and more painful to read, culminating in it being downright revolting. I was horrified at the terrible damage that March's stupidity had inflicted on her daughter and others in the town by the end, and her revelation at the end had no meaning because of how sudden and utterly obvious it was.

As is usual with these books, there are one or two redeeming characters that keep the book from becoming truly awful. March's savvy teenage daughter Gwen, who sees everything her mother blindly ignores, is one of them. The bond she forms with the horse and her relationship with the gentle Hank, another redeeming character, are sweet. Otherwise, this book felt like one skewed moral after another.