Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman

Read for: Global Reading Challenge 2010 – US, North America (I chose to include this as one of my NA books because I haven’t read that many books about the South and that seems to be a major theme in this novel.) Reviews by Lola’s review

Cecelia (CeeCee) Honeycutt has a crappy life.  Her mother suffers from psychosis and her father has pretty much washed his hands of the whole situation when her mother is killed by a car while crossing the street.   Her great-aunt Tootie shows up to rescue her.  She takes her to live with her in Savannah, Georgia.

First, what I liked about the book.  I really enjoyed the writing.  Hoffman can write!  I actually felt like I was sitting in the lush gardens and beautiful homes with the CeeCee.  The way she describes the scenery was amazing.  Every time I opened the book I felt like I’d been scooped up and plunked down right in the middle of Savannah.

I also enjoyed the story.  It was a light, cute coming of age story about a sweet young girl who really deserved a better life.  And here’s where I talk about the things I didn’t like.  At times I  found the story to be too sweet and even bordering on cheesy.  I also felt that certain parts lacked depth.  I can’t quite put my finger on what exactly but at times I found myself hoping for more, you know?  I also found some of the characters (and some of the traits of the characters) to be a little unbelievable.  Once again, I can’t exactly pinpoint specifics – I just had a vague feeling of dissatisfaction with some of the characters.  I think the biggest offender was CeeCee.  I found her to be really inconsistent.  Likable, but just a teeny bit unbelievable.

However, my biggest complaint about the book was really not related to the story at all.  There were some major editing issues.  Misspelled words, incorrect punctuation and sentences that were missing words or had extra words.  I know this is not a problem for some readers but it really bothers me when a book has this many errors.  I hope they can get that fixed for future editions.

Overall, I really did enjoy the book.  I know it sounds like I had lots of complaints but really these things were just minor distractions for me.  It definitely wasn’t a book that I couldn’t put down, but I think that goes in hand with the type of book it is.  It has a lilting, lyrical feel to it that just calmed and soothed me whenever I picked it up.