By Beth Hoffman
Penguin Audio, 2010. 10 hours. Fiction.
It's 1963 and CeeCee Honeycutt has spent the first 12 years of her life caring for her mentally unstable mother while her father traveled for work. When her mother is killed in a tragic accident, CeeCee is sent to live with her mother's Aunt Tootie in Savannah, a lifetime away from all she's ever known in Willoughby, Ohio. CeeCee is soon surrounded by a flock of warm and caring women who hope, through their love, to help her find joy in life again.
I read this book a couple of years ago and quickly fell in love with it, which made it an easy choice for something to listen to while I worked on a project. The audiobook made me fall in love with the story all over again. The writing reminded me very much of The Help, with its focus on social mores of the Civil Rights era south, but while segregation and equal rights come up, they are not the focus of the story. The characters are well-rounded and believable and you find yourself hoping that CeeCee will learn to trust both them and herself again. The narrative weaves seamlessly between the serious and the humorous, never becoming too overbearing or stifling. And the reading was heavenly - the narrator is who completely reconverted me to this book. The voicing was beautifully done and kept the listener engaged with the story. She made it very easy to tell who was talking and enhanced the narrative through the way she read it. Available on CD or as a downloadable audiobook, as well as in book, ebook, and book club set formats.
JH
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