Review: The Sugar Queen - Sarah Addison Allen

Josey Cirrini is sure of three things: winter is her favorite season, she’s a sorry excuse for a Southern belle, and sweets are best eaten in the privacy of her closet. For while Josey has settled into an uneventful life in her mother’s house, her one consolation is the stockpile of sugary treats and paperback romances she escapes to each night…. Until she finds her closet harboring Della Lee Baker, a local waitress who is one part nemesis—and two parts fairy godmother. With Della Lee’s tough love, Josey’s narrow existence quickly expands. She even bonds with Chloe Finley, a young woman who is hounded by books that inexplicably appear when she needs them—and who has a close connection to Josey’s longtime crush. Soon Josey is living in a world where the color red has startling powers, and passion can make eggs fry in their cartons. And that’s just for starters.

Brimming with warmth, wit, and a sprinkling of magic, here is a spellbinding tale of friendship, love—and the enchanting possibilities of every new day.

Genre: Fiction/Magical realism, Pages: 294, Published: 2009, Publisher: Bantam, Source: My own

My thoughts:

I had heard good things about her books, and I do like magical realism so I thought why not. And now, now I think, why not sooner!?

This was a wonderful light book, I could not put it down. It had everything it should have, a bit of magic that seemed so real. Books that follow someone around. Light and warmth and a bit of a fairytale over it all. Josey is a bit like Rapunzel, she is stuck in her house, guarded by her mother. But she lets her hair down and starts to live.

I liked Josey, she tries her best with her mother. But they are not happy together. Instead Josey hoards candy and romance novels. She has no life. Until a fairygodmother, in the form of a woman on the run from a man, shows up in her closet. Della gives her the push she needs and it was a joy to see Josey try new things and get away from the darkness that is her mother.

She also make a new friend, make that only friend, Chloe. Another woman with man trouble, and of course, a strange habit of collecting books that just shows up. Something I loved because I am a booklover, and to have books just show up? Yes please. And these two women are good for each other. A growing friendship is on the way.

Of course we have a sprinkle of romance too which again warms my heart. This princess needs that.

In the end it was just perfect, just like I want my magical realism fiction to be. It was also a different sort of Southern book, since there is a ski resort on the mountains, and that gave it another sort of flavor.

Conclusion:
Yes I want more by this author and I also recommend this book.

Cover:
I do not like it