Saving CeeCee Honeycutt - Beth Hoffman

This is sweet little book set in the South about a young girl, 12 years old, whose mother is mentally ill and whose father is primarily absent. Things come to a crisis point after a while, and CeeCee is taken to Savannah, Georgia, to live with her great Aunt Tootie who she never really even knew before. Here, CeeCee is saved by the wonderful companionship and love shown to her by a town seemingly full of only women. I enjoyed this story very much, but I would have liked to see more depth in the novel. When I compare this story to other books which share some things with this book, like The Secret Life of Bees and The Help, I find this book to be lacking in depth. There's so much potential here, for example, for CeeCee's aunt and Oletta and Mrs. O'Dell to help her really work through her issues, but they just sort of gloss over them, and I found that to be a little disappointing. The descriptions of the places were excellent, and I really loved all the main characters - there was nothing I didn't like about this book, I just thought it could have been so much more. the good news is, this is the author's first book, and I can see that she has a lot of potential, so I will look forward to reading more of her books in the future.

Although this book has a 12 year old main character, I think it's a book better suited to adult readers. Available at the Multnomah County Library.

PS My book group thought this would make an excellent movie!