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Steel Magnolias meets The Help in this Southern debut novel sparkling with humor, heart, and feminine wisdom
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 … 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.
Laugh-out-loud funny and deeply touching, Beth Hoffman’s sparkling debut is, as Kristin Hannah says, “packed full of Southern charm, strong women, wacky humor, and good old-fashioned heart.” It is a novel that explores the indomitable strengths of female friendship and gives us the story of a young girl who loses one mother and finds many others.
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Loved this book!
Excellent and easy ready. Very relaxing and great for a Sunday afternoon. Reminds me of my childhood in many ways in the late 50’s and early 60’s. Some wonderful memories but reminds you how far we have come with more to go.
Read it a long time ago…catchy name helps me remember that I read it. I know that I selected and read it twice. 🙂
This is one of the sweetest books I’ve read in a long time with characters anyone would love. No foul language or gruesome details to be concerned with and an ending that couldn’t be more perfect.
One of my all time favorite books.
Great story with strong women making a difference in a young girl’s life
Couldn’t get enough of this story. Even listened to it on Audible after the read.
I’ve of two minds about Beth Hoffman’s Saving Ceecee Honeycutt. On the one hand, the first part of the novel manages a deft little tap dance between the dark and heavy (I’m giving nothing away when I say that Ceecee’s mother’s mental illness is the cog around which the entire book turns, and her mother’s suicide is the defining moment of Ceecee’s short life) and the delightful (Hoffman puts a bounce in Ceecee’s step even when she’s confronting the horrors of her father’s infidelity or her mother’s madness. All of which is to say, I just knew this was a book I would love. But.
After Ceecee’s mother commits suicide, her father cedes Ceecee’s upbringing up an eccentric great-aunt from Savannah whose life is 180 degrees from anything Ceecee has previously known. Overnight, she’s transported from small town Ohio to Savannah, plopped amongst her aunt’s equally eccentric neighbors and friends. In Savannah, Ceecee quickly makes friends with her aunt’s housekeeper, Oletta, and it’s here that I began to have my doubts. Oletta is a fantastic character, full of her own brand of fun and joy, don’t get me wrong. But.
Despite Ceecee and Oletta’s friendship, despite Oletta’s reverence for one Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., despite a racially charged encounter between a white man and Oletta’s friends, despite the fact that the entire book takes place over the course of one summer in 1960s Savannah, it felt like Hoffman glossed over what could only have been the – the – issue confronting Ceecee every day of her new life. Yes, Ceecee’s mother was from Georgia – Miss Vidalia 1951, thank you very much – but she had lived her entire life in a tiny midwestern town and I had a hard time buying what Hoffman was selling in the later chapters.It’s a shame, too, because I’m a little gaga for Savannah, myself, and generally have a soft spot for Southern literature. Saving Ceecee Honeycutt just missed the mark, though.
(This review was originally published at https://www.thisyearinbooks.com/2018/05/saving-ceecee-honeycutt.html)
I hated for this book to end.
For readers who loved PollyAnna this is a wonderful easy to read enjoyment
Enjoyable read but very predictable. Sad beginning in regards to her mother and eventually father but once she went to live with aunt became a predictible storyline.
The language in the book was beautiful. I have recommended this book to many friends.
The characters are wonderful, descriptions so good, you become emotionally involved in the story. Hard to put down.
I liked that I didn’t figure out the ending until the very end.
I really enjoyed reading this book about a little girl whose early life is unpredictable with a mentally ill mother who loved her but wasn’t really capable of raising a child and an absentee father. Things change when a relative takes her home to Savannah, Georgia. Much wisdom from some of the characters in how to succeed in life. A book guaranteed to make you smile.
Love this author!!! Anything she writes I want to read! This is a coming of age story, involving a little girl, a father that is disconnected..and a mom that was living in her mind reliving her past glories. After a tragedy occurs, Ceecee is taken in by a rich aunt that had the heart of gold…and tons of zany friends that Ceecee comes to love. Who says that wishes don’t come true??
I loved this book!
Just a good, fun summer read. Nothing earth-shattering but entertaining. I love good women characters and this one has them.
Loved the book, some was close to home. I was younger when my mom died and she wasn’t crazy, but my way of coping was climbing inside books. There was so much I could relate to, would have been great to have a great aunt Tootie,not my luck though. It made me laugh and cry. Loved the book.
Great book