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Pages: 306
Published: 2010
Publisher: Penguin
Source: My bookshelf
Twelve-year-old CeeCee Honeycutt is in trouble. For years, she has been the caretaker of her psychotic mother, Camille-the tiara-toting, lipstick-smeared laughingstock of an entire town-a woman trapped in her long-ago moment of glory as the 1951 Vidalia Onion Queen. But when Camille is hit by a truck and killed, CeeCee is left to fend for herself. To the rescue comes her previously unknown great-aunt, Tootie Caldwell.
In her vintage Packard convertible, Tootie whisks CeeCee away to Savannah's perfumed world of prosperity and Southern eccentricity, a world that seems to be run entirely by women. From the exotic Miz Thelma Rae Goodpepper, who bathes in her backyard bathtub and uses garden slugs as her secret weapons, to Tootie's all-knowing housekeeper, Oletta Jones, to Violene Hobbs, who entertains a local police officer in her canary-yellow peignoir, the women of Gaston Street keep CeeCee entertained and enthralled for an entire summer.
My thoughts:
After my last two disappointments I knew I needed something to good, but what? I had heard such good things about this one and sometimes lit fiction is just the thing to get you out of that rut. And I was right.
This book was just plain charming, sweet, up-lifting and filled with wisdom and friendship. It was just the kind of book I needed. And all those things I had heard were true, Hoffman has a good voice and she weaves a magical story in a way. A delightful book that still deals with some heavy things.
Poor CeeCee, her mum is crazy and her dad is always away. The kids at school laugh at her cos of her mum, and even the grown-ups stay away. I just felt so sorry for that poor child, at least this did have one friend in an elderly woman, but life was hard for her. She had to take care of everything. And her mum's death left her with big scars, but that is what this book deals with. Coming to terms with those scars and finding friends. Never have I been happier to see someone make friends in this book because she was so deserving.
The writing is wonderful, there is always something warm over the whole book and at the end I smiled. All was well and it left that same warm feeling inside of me that was found in the book.
Conclusion:
A great book that I recommend warmly and I have my fellow booklovers to thank for reading it.
Cover:
Fitting
