#Inspired50 Fast Facts:
Book: Where the Heart Is by Billie Letts
Genre/Audience: Fiction, novel, romance
Rating: 9.5/10
Worth the read?: Absolutely
better than the movie?
I can’t count how many times I’ve watched the film adaptation of Where the Heart Is over the years—it’s always been one of mine and my mom’s favorites. Imagine my surprise when I stumbled upon a copy of the book in Goodwill quite some time ago—I had no clue the movie was based on a book! (Then again, I also didn’t realize it wasn’t a made-for-TV movie, either…)
So, naturally, I scooped the book up and brought it home where it could be loved. And by loved I mean that it sat on my shelf unread and collecting dust for more than a year before it finally reached the front of the queue for the #Inspired50 challenge.
The novel opens with 17-year-old Novalee Nation, pregnant by no-good Willy Jack Pickens and traveling from Tennessee to California to chase a better life. But she and Willy Jack never make it to California together, and Novalee is left to raise her child alone. But Willy Jack chose the wrong Walmart at which to abandon his pregnant girlfriend, because the people of Sequoyah, Oklahoma aren’t about to let a young woman raise a baby all alone. Safe in the home of Sister Husband and bewildered by the library of Forney Hull, Novalee and her baby find family in the people of Sequoyah—the first family she has ever known.
‘git to reading
Admittedly, my expectations were pretty low, seeing as I’d loved the movie for years without knowing it first existed as a novel. I expected the story to be one depressing page after another, because the story is kind of glum. But the book was not depressing; far from it, Where the Heart Is delivered a heartwarming, gut-wrenching kind of feeling deep in my chest. I didn’t want the book to end, but when it did, my heart was full.
If you’re still not convinced about reading Where the Heart Is, here are the top three reasons I think you should buy this book right now:
reason 1:
Oprah—the Oprah—selected this book for her book club.
If that’s not a trustworthy recommendation, I don’t know what is.
reason 2:
Where the Heart Is features diverse characters and family structures.
This is where the movie undoubtedly falls short (no surprise there).
There are no traditional families in the course of the novel, and the story avoids the vacuum of whiteness that pervades many books. Where the Heart Is explores families with broken pieces and missing members, and it wrestles with family trauma head-on. Households are uprooted, torn apart, and held together at the seams by the unrelenting force of community throughout the course of the novel.
Additionally, I was pleasantly surprised by the diverse cast of characters. This story is not about a middle-class white woman and her crew of white friends—rather, it is multi-generational, upholds perspectives from several racial/ethnic perspectives, and gives valuable roles to characters who are not white.
One of those characters, Moses Whitecotton, is possibly entirely responsible for my obsession with the meaning of names. For as long as I can remember, whenever I see or hear an interesting name, my immediate response is to look it up to discover its origin and meaning. If a name doesn’t have a significant meaning, no matter how pretty I find it, I won’t write it down. It wasn’t until I read Moses’ words on the page that I realized my name obsession might have stemmed from Where the Heart Is.
“Get your baby a name that means something. A sturdy name. Strong name. Name that’s gonna withstand a lot of bad times. A lot of hurt.”
Moses Whitecotton
Novalee is taken aback by Moses when she firsts meets him, evidence that her life up to that point has been lived primarily in white communities—a perfect segue to the third reason you should read this story.
reason 3:
Novalee is a character who is going somewhere, no matter the cost.
Have you ever read a book filled with beautiful prose and likeable characters, but the story seems stagnant? I know I have—and usually, those are the books that I either don’t finish or forget five minutes after I’ve reached the end. I read Where the Heart Is more than two weeks ago, and there are bits of this book still stuck to my skin like permanent marker (you know, faded a bit, but definitely visible).
Novalee Nation is uneducated and naïve, but finds herself drowning in a world of books thanks to her biggest fan and the best friend she’s ever known, Forney Hull. By the story’s conclusion, she has read more classics than her 17-year-old self could have named.
She has been abandoned, stolen from, violated and rejected, but by the end, she has been shown the value of community, motherhood, and friendship—surrounded by people who are nothing like her, but are everything she needs.
The beauty of Novalee Nation is that she refuses to be corrupted by a world doing everything it can to break her. Ah, so. good.
What are you reading these days?
I know we haven’t made it far into 2019, but I’d put money on it that by the end of the year, this book will still be in my top three reads for the #Inspired50 challenge.
What is the best book you’ve read in the last year? What made it stand out to you? I want to know! Leave a comment below or hop on over to my contact page to send me a message, and don’t forget to follow along on social media and use #Inspired50 when you post about your 2019 reads!
Happy reading!
Nikki
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