2020 PenCraft Award Winner – Women’s Fiction
2020 International Book Awards Finalist – Literary
2020 Readers Favorite Book Awards Finalist – Literary
2019 Faulkner/Wisdom Writing Award Finalist
A drunken mother makes childhood ugly. Jane runs away at sixteen, determined to leave her fraught upbringing in the rearview. Vowing never to return, she hitchhikes to California, right on time for the … return, she hitchhikes to California, right on time for the Summer of Love. Seventeen years later, she looks good on paper: married, grad school, sober, but her carefully constructed life is crumbling. When Mama dies, Jane returns for the funeral, leaving her husband in the dark about her history. Seeing her childhood home and significant people from her youth catapults Jane back to the events that made her the woman she is. She faces down her past and the ghosts that shaped her family. A stunning discovery helps Jane see her problems through a new lens.
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Sweet Jane is Joanne Kukanza Easley’s debut novel. In it she spins the tale of generations of alcohol addiction and its effects on a family in Odessa, Texas. Jane survives a rough childhood, but leaves when she realizes how little her mother cares for her. At that point, Jane hitchhikes to California for a better life.
Jane returns to Texas and manages with a lot of support to become a psychologist married to a psychiatrist. When her mother dies, Jane goes home, sans husband—as she doesn’t want him to see the world from which she came. She’s forced to face the ghosts of her past before she can try to save her crumbling marriage.
It is interesting that I’ve recently read two books set in Odessa, Texas, a town just twenty-two miles from where I grew up. The other book is Valentine, by Elizabeth Wetmore, released at almost the same time as Sweet Jane. Of the two, Valentine is a better book. It is grittier with a more interesting structure and truly captures the ambiance of Odessa during an oil-field boom. Sweet Jane, while good, is fairly predictable and the ending seems a bit facile.
Generation after generation of alcohol addiction takes its toll, and Joanne Kukanza Easley spins a colorful tale of Jane as she survives childhood with a drunk for a mother until she finally runs away to figure out a better life. None of that figuring came easily to Jane; there was no straight line from A to B, not with all the secrets that needed to be waded through.
Jane returns home when her mother dies and is forced to face the ghosts of her past before she has a prayer of putting her life in order.
This debut author creates settings that truly come alive on the page with near-perfect pacing. I look forward to this author’s next work.
I noticed this novel because it had won some awards. A well-written story that switches between first and third-person telling of the story of a woman, Jane, who suffered some childhood trauma, including an abusive alcoholic mother, and is in adulthood coming to terms with her past. The story is very Texas-centric. I did not develop an affinity for the main character as an adult, although she was a sympathetic character as a child and adolescent.
How do I even begin to express what a phenomenal story this is! The writing is impeccable. From the opening pages Ms. Easley dropped me into Jane’s life. Through the journey of Sweet Jane’s dysfunctional childhood, to her tumultuous teen years in the late 60s, and finally into facing her past by going back to where it all began, I was experiencing the story as if I were there. This author has a special gift of natural storytelling as though the reader is actually a part of the pages. The west Texas twang and honest words of a seven year old Janie were as if she were speaking from the book. Just as vivid are the descriptions of events, places, and people who are part of Jane’s life as the story progresses.
There is so much real-to-life throughout this book. I was taken back to the late 60’s and Jane’s time at Haight-Ashbury and the hippie scene. If I had closed my eyes and reopened them, it felt like being there. And so it was with the rest of the book. The dual time line worked very well for me in understanding how Jane became who she was and then finding the answers she was seeking to be who she was meant to be. I connected with Jane from the very beginning because of the brilliant West Texas dialogue and from page one to the very last, I couldn’t turn them fast enough. It’s a wonderful novel.
I want to thank Ms. Easley for penning such a wonderful book and the honor that I had to read this novel. I loved every page. I am very much looking forward to reading Ms. Easley’s next novel, Just One Look. All opinions and thoughts in this review are my heartfelt own. I truly do recommend this book.
Powerful Story of Jane’s journey.Done very well going back and forth, past and present. Redemtion, Dysfunction,
heartbreak, family, friendship, love, friendship and everything in between. This book covers it along with all the twists and turns Jane experiences. You will be hooked right to the end. You will expect somethings and be surprised about others.
Sweet Jane is told in dual timelines. It opens with Jane as a young girl living with her dysfunctional, alcoholic mother. Her solace lies in her one friendship, a boy named Ricky. In the present-day story, Jane returns to her West Texas home when her mother passes away. She finds more than death she needs to deal with. As her past unfurls, we see the difficulties that confronted Jane then and how they affect her as an adult. I loved the voice of both young and adult Jane. The story is at once sad and uplifting. A thoroughly enjoyable read.
Book Review: Sweet Jane by author, Joanne Kukanza Easley
This!
Sweet Jane is one of those stories that comes along and completely captivates its reader – it certainly did me… A multi-award-winning narrative that you won’t be able to put down as the author takes you on a journey that will have you turning the pages faster than you can keep up. With its vivid descriptions, its heart-tugging true-to-life situations, strong characters and how the delicate line between love and hate becomes blurred, and can change everything in an instant, this story has become a true favorite of mine.
The Jennings Family has seen their share of tragedy, insurmountable dysfunction, and it has broken Janie. She takes matters into her own hands in the hopes of breaking loose from what holds her captive~ her mother’s inability to show love, understanding and acceptance towards her only daughter~ everything a little girl needs, wants, and deserves.
With a home life that breathes darkness and complexity, a father who loves his daughter, but turns a blind eye and a deaf ear to the issues, and a heartless mother whose only lot in life is to treat her daughter miserably as she threatens and rules over her, and her ever-lasting need of her daughter’s fetching of her vodka bottle, Janie learns to escape into a world of make-believe. Along with her best friend Ricky, it’s the only reprieve she has in order to avoid the sting of verbal assaults and disgust that her mother is only to happy to sling her way.
At the tender age of sixteen, Janie runs from her family, her life, one that has been hidden away in their little corner of West-Texas and on to a world of the unknown, where the floodgates open to bad choices, and life’s lessons~ all waiting her arrival.
“The question was not what kind of life she would have had if she weren’t raised in that house–but what kind of life she could have despite it.”
I thank the author for this most enjoyable story of heartbreak, healing, and self-discovery. A wonderful story of life, love, hope and redemption, bittersweet twists and turns, and on to finding a true place of belonging. It’s certainly one I highly recommend and happily give 5 Texas-sized Stars to.
5 Stars
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Wild Sage Book Blog
Sweet Jane, was a really good book. This author can really write a book.. Jane’s Mother is a Drunk. Jane’s grandmother June, is also a drunk.. but the story is about Jane.. Jane ends up leaving at age 16teen because her mother treats her so poorly.. it’s like she’s an afterthought.. Jane leaves home at age 16.. but returns many years later for her mother’s funeral.. returning after she swore she would never step foot again in Odessa Texas. Jane herself has ups and downs with alcohol, and Men goes through AA.. finds out family secrets many years after the fact. This was really a good book. I would truly recommend this book to others it was one I honestly enjoyed.. and I think others will also..
Thank you Joanne Kukanza Easley.
For this Story..
Refreshing, real honesty and self honesty shines through. A book to read and to remember and reflect on. A book to stay with you, a great read.
When I read this book, I kept wanting the main character, Jane, to do the right thing. In the end, she did, but she had to learn her lessons, face her demons, and wake up to her potential. This story is so wonderfully told that you’d want to sit down with Jane and have a talk with her, be her big sister, but she eventually became her own best friend and big sister. She became her own hero. A great story told with the right amount of expertise that it draws you in and takes you along with Jane on her journey.
Easley’s vivid descriptions and sweet voice brought this reader deep in to the story and had me turning pages not wanting to put the book down. Between the West Texas twang and the music of the 60s, I felt like I was on the road with Jane wherever she was traveling in the novel. I felt Jane’s angst, anger, fears and insecurities while following her from childhood to adulthood with all the twists and turns her life took, the tragedies she had to deal with as well as the long-held secrets. You’ll cheer for Jane and want to hug her at the end.
Sweet Jane takes the readers on and emotional journey that is so raw and gritty you can’t help but be drawn to Jane. After years of emotional abuse from her aloholic mother, Jane finally leaves home at a young age and heads west. What follows is many ups and downs as she trys to deal with emotions that she has never come to terms with. At the death of her mother, she returns for the funeral and opens up old wounds that she needs to find a way to deal with. I would definitely recommend this book to others. I received a copy of the book as a gift, and all opinions expressed are my own.
Upon reading the fantastically written voice of Sweet Jane’s first chapter, I was in! I wanted the rest of the story! When an author gifts the reader with such spot-on colloquialisms and engaging personality, the bond is a real one, and author, Joanne Kukanza Easley tells this layered story of cause and effect, action and reaction, and the repercussions of family dysfunction in such a realistic, intimate manner that Sweet Jane remains alluring throughout. This is a novel with heart and West-Texas Strutt. Sweet Jane gets beneath the skin of a woman determined to do the work to heal herself, and I absolutely loved it!
With an authentic voice and a true sense of place Joanne Kukanza Easley delivers a powerful read.
Sweet Jane by Joanne Kukanza Easley is a debut novel that I enjoyed reading. This story is about Jane’s life told in dual time lines from her very difficult and painful childhood living with her alcoholic mother, and the present day as Jane is married, and what seems to be that she has moved on with her life to a path of success. After many years she receives a call that her mother had died. Coming back home for the funeral, it seems that Jane’s old wounds have not completely healed. This is a beautifully written story by Easley that examines the mother and daughter relationship, forgiveness and healing. I enjoyed the prose and Easley’s effortless writing that offered great insightful look into life’s bumpy roads and the chance for a hopeful future. I enjoyed this one a lot. To know this was written by a fellow nurse makes this an even better read.