Where the Heart Is by Billie Letts

This novel opens with Novalee and Willy Jack, her boyfriend, traveling from Tennessee to California. At the time, Novalee is "seventeen, seven months pregnant, thirty-seven pounds overweight, and superstitious about sevens." Letts describes Novalee's relationships with the number seven: "For most people, sevens are lucky, but not for Novalee; at the age of seven her mother ran off with a baseball umpire named Fred.

Novalee convinces Willy Jack to stop at a Wal-Mart in Sequoyah, Oklahoma, so she can use the restroom and purchase a pair of sandals, as hers fell through the floor of their beat up car. When Novalee comes out of the Wal-Mart, she realizes Willy Jack has left her with nothing more than her beach bag and the $7.77 she has in change from the purchase of new sandals. What to do now? She hides in the Wal-Mart at night, but soon of course the baby comes. It is a daughter who gets the name Americus. She gets help from a customer in the store, Forney, a librarian who becomes maybe more than her best friend.

She soon leaves the Wal-Mart and makes a new start at the trailer house of Sister Husband,a kind and spunky woman who runs the town's "Welcome Wagon." Sister Husband has a deep faith and hands out chapters of the Bible to people she meets. Till the end of the book you read what happens in the hectic life of Novalee.And we also find out how the life of Willy Jack is progressing..

This book totally blow me away! What would you do if your horrible boyfriend leaves you stranded in a desolate place as the Wal-Mart? Novalee's life has many ups and (mostly)downs, but it is just amazing and beautiful written by the author Billy Letts. I finished in two days, I just couldn't put it down and had to know what happened next in this book that is also an Oprah's Book Club pick. This book is definately to be added on my favorite books list.