The film, Desert Hearts, is much better, although the book has a better ending and the characters are more fleshed out in the book.

This is a very dense, philosophical book. It just gets bogged down and it's only 225 pages. It also a different ending than the movie, which I found interesting. But, other than that, stick to the movie. ( )

Subtle, philosophical, beautiful, hopeful. Characters I was curious about and frustrated by, that I argued with and rooted for. So much better than the movie (Desert Hearts) that it's kind of ridiculous. ( )

I had read this book years and years ago, and quite liked it then. I was rather afraid to re-read, because often lesbian fiction that I liked in the old days doesn't hold up. I think that back then I was just excited to read books that reflected my life, so I wasn't super critical. The other thing is its just hard to remember, in 2016, how much things have changed, and how hard it was to be a lesbian just a generation ago. I was talking just the other night with a friend about the movie Carol. She was kind of complaining that the movie left her feeling so sad. I had to remind her that for that time, that was a happy ending.

In [Desert of the Heart], there were times when I felt that the characters were way to serious and melodramatic for the situation. I had to remind myself that, for the error, the drama made sense. There was very little room, and that time, for an independent woman, and absolutely no room for an out lesbian to live safely. That said, I do think that at times Rule is just to serious and philosophical. But she is a good writer, I think, and the story is interesting. Evelyn Hall comes to Reno to get a quicky divorce. This is back when divorces were harder to get, and so it meant staying in Reno for 6 weeks and pretending that she was establishing residence there. She meets a quirky younger woman, Ann Childs, who works in a casino, and has her own struggles with intimacy. The book is interesting also for it's descriptions of Nevada, the casinos, and that whole world.

So the book has a happy ending--hooray! I thought it was worth my reading time... probably 3 1/2 stars, maybe 4? ( )

i wanted to like this, but it's a mess. it tries to be way too many things and ends up being a jumble that often doesn't quite make sense, with these spots of clarity (and lovely literary references) that could have been so much more. i found this annoying more than anything else, while reading. the characters and their interactions aren't even a little believable, and the main relationship even less so, even before you get to the ending. a book about ann and silver, that i might have liked.

"You had to love the whole damned world to love anyone at all." ( )

Definitely a better-than-average specimen of the "LGBT classic" - a thoughtful, well-written and not too predictable lesbian romance with lots of interesting period detail about the Nevada gambling industry. As a few others have mentioned, there's also plenty of entertainment value in trying to spot places where the 1985 film actually used part of the book. (Apart from the setting in Reno and the occupations of the two main characters, there isn't much overlap between the two.) ( )