Saving CeeCee Honeycutt

Books | Fiction / Literary

4.2

(356)

Beth Hoffman

Steel Magnolias meets The Help in this New York Times Bestselling 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 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 officer in her canary-yellow peignoir, the women of Gaston Street keep CeeCee entertained and enthralled for an entire summer. A timeless coming of age novel set in the 1960s, Saving CeeCee Honeycutt explores the indomitable strengths of female friendship, and charts the journey of an unforgettable girl who loses one mother, but finds many others in the storybook city of Savannah. As Kristin Hannah, author of Fly Away, says, Beth Hoffman's sparkling debut is “packed full of Southern charm, strong women, wacky humor, and good old-fashioned heart."

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More Details:

Author

Beth Hoffman

Pages

320

Publisher

Penguin

Published Date

2010-01-12

ISBN

1101189851 9781101189856

Ratings

Google: 5

Community ReviewsSee all

"I loved this heartbreaking and heartwarming story of CeeCee Honeycutt. She spends a lot of her childhood traumatized, having to take care of her psychotic mother. After a catastrophe, CeeCee is uprooted from the only home she’s ever known to live in Savannah with the great aunt she doesn’t know to make a new life. This will touch your heart. "

Jackie Davidson

"Such a good heart warming story!"

M P

Meri Pedersen

"Funny and heartwarming"

Kelly

"This book was funny at times and just showed so much character development, I don’t even know how to describe how good it was."

B T

Breanna Tranchemontagne

"I really enjoyed the part where CeeCee goes over to the neighbor's house and they toss slugs into the other neighbors backyard. It's been a little bit since I read the book so I can't remember the characters and I also don't want to provide too many spoilers but I thought that was hilarious!!"

Jalon Ekholm

"This book was compared The Help. That's why I picked it up. It's a cute story but it's not The Help. I didn't like that everything had too perfect a resolution."

Jennifer Vos

"http://littabylitta.wordpress.com/2013/01/07/book-review-saving-ceecee-honeycutt-by-beth-hoffman/ Saving CeeCee Honeycutt is the January pick for the Last Saturday Book Club. I hadn’t heard of it before and I don’t believe I would’ve picked it up based on the cover or reading the jacket. This is Beth Hoffman’s debut so I was really going in blind. After the untimely death of her mentally ill mother, 12-year-old CeeCee Honeycutt goes to Savannah to live with her well-to-do Great Aunt Tootie. CeeCee meets Tootie’s cast of friends, each a bigger character than the next. Antics ensue, tears are shed, and spoiler alert then there is a big garden party before our titular heroine goes to private school. The end. There are a lot of really big things going on in this book. Mental illness, death, racism, classism, infidelity, dishonesty, and child abandonment, just to mention a few of the themes. I don’t feel sad for any of the characters though and I believe it has everything to do with how it was written. A lot more could’ve been made of this book. The main issue is that the author, Beth Hoffman, tied up each problem in a neat little bow disguised as wise words from an older woman. Or, conversely, is the bigot next door in the hospital? Well then the 12-year-old white girl should talk the black cook into going for a swim in her pool! YAY! There were only a few times where I felt connected to any of the characters but it didn’t last long since the scenarios were too outlandish or too easily cleaned up."