Saving CeeCee Honeycutt

Author: Beth Hoffman
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group, 2010
Pages: 336
Rating: Recommend

Synopsis: Twelve-year-old CeeCee Honeycutt is in trouble. For years, she has been the caretaker of her mother, Camille, the town's tiara-wearing, lipstick-smeared laughingstock, a woman who is trapped in her long-ago moment of glory as the 1951 Vidalia Onion Queen of Georgia. When tragedy strikes, Tootie Caldwell, CeeCee's long-lost great-aunt, comes to the rescue and whisks her away to Savannah. There, CeeCee is catapulted into a perfumed world of prosperity and Southern eccentricity - one that appears to be run entirely by strong, wacky 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 office in her canary-yellow peignoir, the women of Gaston Street keep CeeCee entertained and enthralled for an entire summer.

Review: Typically I have a difficult time reading on a plane, the distractions of those around me, turbulence, interruptions by flight attendants, but not so with this novel. This book grabbed me immediately, and my 3+ hour flight was over before I knew it.

I loved the characters and imagine that the author had great fun imagining and writing their stories. Fun, quick, escapist read.