Book Review Friday: A Grown Up Kind of Pretty by Joshilyn Jackson

My literary tour of the South continues this week with Joshilyn Jackson's latest, A Grown Up Kind of Pretty. Maybe it's just that we're in what feels like the longest, coldest time of the year here that's making me want to escape south of the Mason-Dixon line?

I read Jackson's Gods in Alabama a few years ago and really enjoyed it, and I'd heard good things about this book, so I was excited to read it. And I wasn't disappointed. A Grown Up Kind of Pretty is the story of three generations of Slocumb women -- Ginny, a matriarch at the age of 45, her daughter Liza, a beautiful, wild and troubled 30-year-old, and Liza's daughter, Mosey, who just turned 15. Ginny believes that trouble comes to the Slocumb women every 15 years, and her theory is proven correct when Liza suffers a stroke at the school picnic, and a tiny skeleton surfaces in her backyard when the willow tree is cut down.

Like the gnarled roots of the willow tree, Jackson weaves a complex story, equal parts mystery and family saga. Each woman tells her own story -- Ginny, and her desire to protect and heal her family while also finding love of her own; Liza, with a brain addled by the effects of a lifetime of drug use and the stoke, struggling to recapture her memories and communicate the truth to her mother and daughter; and Mosey, fighting the current of expectation from her mother, grandmother, and the small Mississippi town that had already labeled her as trouble before she even started kindergarten -- and trying to discover her true identity.

Jackson is a master of characterization, and she created three separate, but familiar, characters, that are familiar but not cliched -- and I loved them all. Despite the fact that their Baptist belt neighbors had dismissed the Slocumb women as whores, not worthy of kindness or forgiveness, Ginny, Liza, and Mosey actually demonstrate the Christian values of forgiveness, love, charity, and kindness more than anyone else. Some of their actions may fall within legal gray areas, but also beg the question of when is it okay to do wrong in the name of the greater good -- and when are appearances deceiving?

Jackson is a master of the clever turn of phrase, and some of her expressions and descriptions were laugh out loud funny. My only quibble with the book is with Mosey's chapters, which are heavy on teen slang and text-speak. While important for establishing character, I found it a little annoying at times -- maybe I'm just showing my age? At the same time, I found myself most engaged with Mosey's sections of the story, perhaps because they were the most action-oriented and revealed the most about the mystery of the skeleton in the yard and Mosey and Liza's backstory.

Minor quibbles aside, though, I loved this book and highly recommend it. Ginny, Liza, and Mosey will stay with you long after you finish the final page . . .I was actually sad to see it end.

Book Review Friday: The Lost Hours by Karen White

In a continuation of the "Read what's on my shelf" thing I have going on, I read Karen White's The Lost Hours a few weekends ago. Seriously -- I started this book on a Friday night and finished on Sunday morning. The only reason it took me so long was that I had to go to a wedding that weekend. The book is THAT good.

Like Saving Cee Honeycutt, last week's review, The Lost Hours is set in Savannah. It's a very different Savannah than CeeCee's world, though . . . less whimsical, more filled with dark secrets that have affected several generations of three families.

In the beginning of The Lost Hours, Piper Mills is reeling from the death of her grandfather. Orphaned as a child, Piper was raised by her grandparents in one of Savannah's grand old houses. A former equestrian champion, Piper had been severely injured in a competition six years earlier, and after her grandfather's death, struggled to find her place and purpose in the world.

The story begins after the funeral, when Piper receives an envelope with two letters, written by her grandmother Annabelle some 70 years earlier to a mysterious friend, and a key. In searching the house for more information about these items, Piper discovers a blue infant sweater in an old trunk, and remembers burying an old box in the yard with her grandfather. She digs up the box, and finds pieces from a scrapbook, a charm bracelet, and a mysterious newspaper clipping from 1939, about an unidentified Black baby found dead in the Savannah River.

Intrigued, Piper begins searching for answers about her grandmother's past. This brings her to a horse farm outside of Savannah, owned by her grandmother's former best friend. Posing as a geneaologist researching the family for a friend, Piper ingratiates herself with Lillian and begins to learn shocking truths about her grandmother's early life, and the history of her family and Savannah.

To say that I loved this book is an understatement. At first, I wasn't so sure -- Piper was so miserable in the early chapters, so depressed and bitter that she was unlikable, and I wondered if I could get through another 300 pages of such as sad sack. As Piper explored her grandmother's story, though, she grew and changed, and became far more sympathetic.

The mystery of the baby, and why Annabelle and Lillian did not speak for more than 70 years is intriguing, and that story kept me turning the pages. I wanted to know what happened, and each time I thought I had it pieced together, a new piece of information emerged that forced me to reconsider my theory. And when the answer is revealed in the final pages, it's shocking, yet completely satisfying and true to the characters that White had created. In fact, the story has a "happy ending," as much as such a tragic tale can, but it didn't feel contrived or rushed.

Like the last two books I've read, I can't believe I let this one sit on the shelf for so long -- and that I've never read Karen White's books before. I'll definitely be adding more of her books to my "must-read" list.

Book Review Friday: Saving Cee Cee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman

So I've been working through my bookshelf, reading all the books that have been sitting there all lonely for a while. And this book? I cannot believe that I let this much wonderfulness (yes, it's a word) sit there undiscovered for so long.

Saving CeeCee Honeycutt is Beth Hoffman's debut novel, and I hope that she has many more stories in her. The story starts in Willoughby, OH, where 12-year-old CeeCee is watching her mother go insane. Her father is an alcoholic traveling salesman who drinks and works to avoid his daughter and unraveling wife. CeeCee's only friend is the elderly Mrs. Odell, a next door neighbor who is everyone's dream grandma.
When CeeCee's mother, Camille, dies after being hit by an ice cream truck, salvation comes in the form of one Tallulah "Tootie" Caldwell, CeeCee's great aunt and one of the nicest people alive. Aunt Tootie brings CeeCee to live with her in Savannah (one of my most favorite places in the world!) where CeeCee meets a wonderful cast of characters, including Odetta, Tootie's kindly housekeeper/cook, and Miz Thelma Rae Goodpepper, an eccentric neighbor who enchants CeeCee with her exotic tales of love and adventure.
Saving CeeCee Honeycutt is not all southern charm and eccentricity, though. Set in the late 1960's, an undercurrent of racism runs through the city, and CeeCee, having grown up in the desegregated north, learns about humans' capacity for cruelty to each other. CeeCee also has to come to grips with her mother's mental illness and depth, and defining the relationship with the man who was her father by genetics only.
This book is everything that I want in a novel. An intriguing story, likable characters, and a good pace that keeps you interested without glossing over the "hard" stuff. I can't wait to see what Beth Hoffman comes up with next.

Book Review Friday: The Girl Who Chased the Moon: A Novel

So as part of my blog revamp (or vamp, since I never really had much to start with) I’m going to have some new features. The first is “Book Review Fridays” . . . hopefully I’ll have a book each week to review here. Here’s the first:

Amazon.com: The Girl Who Chased the Moon: A Novel (9780553385595): Sarah Addison Allen: Books

I’m a big fan of Sarah Addison Allen’s books. I loved “Garden Spells” and “The Sugar Queen.” I love how she brings her characters and their stories to life, and how the small North Carolina towns where the stories are set are characters as much as the people are. She’s a master of magical realism, making you believe that these amazing things –books appearing right when you need them, friendly ghosts in the closet – are totally normal.
So I wanted to love “The Girl Who Chased the Moon.” I really did. I bought the book a little over a year ago, and then I got a Kindle and was so enthralled with my new toy that I forgot about all the unread books in the pile next to my bed. But I just finished reading this epic 500-something page book for my book club, and wanted something a little lighter. And like the mysterious happenings in one of her fictional towns, this book just spoke to me. Unfortunately, I didn’t love it.
“The Girl Who Chased the Moon” is the story of two women in the town of Mullaby, North Carolina. Emily Benedict is a 16-year-old, recently orphaned who has come from Boston to live with her maternal grandfather, the 8-foot giant Vance. Julia Winterson, Vance’s next door neighbor, is also a recent arrival in Mullaby, having returned after an 18-year absence to take over her deceased father’s BBQ joint. Julia has no intention of staying in Mullaby; she’s saving money to return to Baltimore and open a bakery.
Mullaby is a town of secrets, though, and as Emily gets to know Julia, she learns more about her mother, Dulcie, who left town after she was blamed for the death of one of her classmates. Dulcie was a queen bee in town, who tortured Julia throughout their high school days. Julia responded to the bullying by cutting herself, and the night before she was to leave for reform school, she shared one night with Sawyer, the most popular boy in school that altered the course of her life forever.
As Emily digs into her mother’s past, she’s fascinated with glowing lights that appear in the woods behind her grandfather’s house every night – even though everyone tells her to ignore them. Her mother’s past haunts her as well, when she starts to have feelings for a boy in town, Win Coffey, against the wishes of her grandfather and Win’s family.
Like Allen’s other books, the story is gentle and sweet, and the characters are quirky and likeable. But the story felt predictable, and the ending was just a little too tidy for my taste. Food plays a role in all of Allen’s books, and she does an amazing job of incorporating all of the senses into her descriptions – I defy you to not crave some barbecue and hummingbird cake after reading this book. But unlike her previous books, I just didn’t feel satisfied with this one. It felt rushed and incomplete, like an underbaked cake.