Off the Bookshelf

I've recently read two wonderful books about women and our friendships and family relationships.  (There was a funny moment when I realized both of the books had a leading character named Tallulah...I mean, really...Tallulah...that is not a common name.)

The first book is Firefly Lane by Kristen Hannah.  I loved this book.  It was a combination of all things Nicholas Sparks, Beaches and Steel Magnolias.  The relationship between Tully and Kate is beautiful and one that lasts through three decades and major moments in history.  I loved the book and after I was done, I cried myself to sleep while singing Dancing Queen in my head. 

In the turbulent summer of 1974, Kate Mularkey has accepted her place at the bottom of the eighth-grade social food chain. Then, to her amazement, the “coolest girl in the world” moves in across the street and wants to be her friend. Tully Hart seems to have it all—-beauty, brains, ambition. On the surface they are as opposite as two people can be: Kate, doomed to be forever uncool, with a loving family who mortifies her at every turn. Tully, steeped in glamour and mystery, but with a secret that is destroying her. They make a pact to be best friends forever; by summer’s end they’ve become TullyandKate. Inseparable.

So begins Kristin Hannah’s magnificent new novel. Spanning more than three decades and playing out across the ever-changing face of the Pacific Northwest, Firefly Lane is the poignant, powerful story of two women and the friendship that becomes the bulkhead of their lives

The second book is Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman.  This was such a sweet easy read.  But the story is one of hardship as young CeeCee watches her mother suffer from a mental illness and CeeCee suffers the ridicule of her classmates.  And when her mother dies, CeeCee is forced to move in with her great-aunt.  The love she is shown and the healing she is given is truly remarkable.

Twelve-year-old CeeCee Honeycutt is in trouble. For years, she has been the caretaker of her psychotic mother, Camille-the tiara-toting, lipstick-smeared laughingstock of an entire town-a woman trapped in her long-ago moment of glory as the 1951 Vidalia Onion Queen. But when Camille is hit by a truck and killed, CeeCee is left to fend for herself. To the rescue comes her previously unknown great-aunt, Tootie Caldwell.

In her vintage Packard convertible, Tootie whisks CeeCee away to Savannah's perfumed world of prosperity and Southern eccentricity, a world that seems to be run entirely by women.

I highly recommend both of these books and they will make wonderful summer/vacation reads if you decide to read them.  Enjoy them and let me know what you think!!!