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Blessings: A Novel [Hardcover]

Sheneska Jackson (Author)
4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (125 customer reviews)


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Book Description

May 6, 1998
In "Blessings", her third, most ambitious, and most accomplished novel, bestselling author Sheneska Jackson proves that she can capture the sound of women talking like no one else can. She knows what thrills, angers, and motivates them, and she shares the secrets that spill out from under hair dryers with heartbreaking and often hilarious candor. At Blessings, Patricia Brown's Los Angeles salon, we listen in on the dish and the drama and get real with the four unforgettable women who work there.

Pat is the owner and matriarch of the salon, and she presides over Blessings with a kind but commanding air-- preventing fiery arguments, smoothing over conflicts, and lending a sympathetic ear to those who need it. But she may never get a chance to be a mother of her own children. After discovering she is infertile, she embarks on a mission to adopt a child, but learns that the process is filled with more anguish than she expected.

Zuma is Blessings' star stylist, and she knows it. This brash diva is a self-described superwoman committed to making her dream of being both a businesswoman and a mom come true. She's got so much confidence that she has vowed to get artificially inseminated if she doesn't find Mr. Right soon-- and she secretly hopes that this will eradicate the indescribable sorrow lingering from the abortion she had years ago.

Faye, another stylist, can't quite forget the memory of her late husband. Lonely and overweight, she turns to food to dull the pain of raising her two children alone. Her daughter has grown up into an explosive young woman, and her little boy is learning the hard way how to survive in the world without a dad. But companionship and support will come along when she's least expecting it.

Sandy, the manicurist, is still searching for her own fulfillment and can't be bothered with the needs of her two small kids. Though she makes no apologies for her highly neglectful mothering, she ultimately makes a mother's biggest sacrifice.

Written with Jackson's trademark skill and sass, "Blessings" paints a deeply moving picture of female struggle and triumph. As Pat, Zuma, Faye, and Sandy laugh, weep, argue, and console each other, Jackson reveals the priceless, inextricable bond between motherhood and sisterhood, and shows why she's become a beloved chronicler of the hearts and minds of women.


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Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

A blessing to one is not necessarily good fortune to another. Jackson's third novel (her previous was Li'l Mama's Rules ) deals with this irony on several fronts. The story takes place at Blessings, a beauty salon in Inglewood, California. Pat, the owner, named the salon Blessings because she wanted to create, and "hooking up hair was the ultimate blessing and one of the easiest ways to make women feel better about themselves." Pat and the three other women (Faye, Zuma, and Sandy) who work at the shop each have to deal with issues surrounding motherhood and parenting: Pat's infertility, Faye's single parenthood, Zuma's artificial insemination, and Sandy's neglectful motherhood. Each situation creates an intensity that bonds the women together, not only as coworkers but ultimately as friends. Jackson's style, humor, and compassion have grown with each novel. This work is sure to please her readers. Lillian Lewis

From Kirkus Reviews

An overly slick third novel from Jackson (Li'l Mama's Rules, 1997, etc.) focuses in a rather programmatic way on the reproductive lives of four womenthree black and one white. When Patricia learns that she's infertile, she falls into a deep depression that lifts only when her long-suffering husband Mark buys her the beauty salon she dubs Blessings. The shop gets off to a rocky start until Pat is joined by feisty young Zuma, a hot-shot hair stylist with a master plan. Tired of the no-account men in her life, Zuma saves a bundle of money, secretly planning to undergo artificial insemination and raise her child alone, partly to wipe away the pain of a long-ago abortion. Her story is set in counterpoint to that of Pat, who suffers bitterly, first over her barrenness and later over failed adoption efforts. Then there's Faye, a widow struggling to raise childrenher six-year-old son, who gets suspended for trying to strangle another boy; and her 16-year-old daughter, who gets pregnant and runs away. Meanwhile, a new manicurist, Sandy, the only white girl in this all-sister mix, is married to the owner of the strip joint where she used to dance. Tied down with her two small children, Sandy openly resents motherhood and flagrantly neglects three-year-old David and baby Dalila. The story's climax comes about through Sandy's monumentally selfish behavior, though her callousness is partially redeemed through an act of kindness to Pat and Mark. Jackson's focus on the ways children shape and alter women's lives is provocative. But breezy, clich-ridden prose and facile observations on politics and love dilute whatever impact the story might have had. (First printing of 60,000) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 400 pages
  • Publisher: Simon & Schuster; First Printing edition (May 6, 1998)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0684850354
  • ISBN-13: 978-0684850351
  • Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (125 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,832,720 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

125 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.6 out of 5 stars (125 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A FANTASTIC PAGE TURNER, August 28, 2000
By 
D. LEE "dml48221" (Palo Alto, California) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Blessings: A Novel (Paperback)
Any African American woman who has ever spent any time in a beauty shop must read this book. The beauty shop "Blessings" is the back drop for a wonderful, entertaining, funny and well written novel about 4 woman and their issues surrounding motherhood. The characters are incredibly well developed and you feel as if you know someone like each of the main characters. Zuma, the major character and the "diva of the hot curlers" is so real. She is so real that any black woman who has sat for hours in a beauty shop knows at least 1 Zuma.

Likewise, whether in a beauty shop or not, we all know at least one character like Faye. A woman who has issues surrounding her own self image and self esteem and drowns her sorrows in a bag of Oreo cookies or by ordering way too much food a Jack in the Box. Yes, we are comfort food addicts and when things go wrong, food and lots of it makes us feel better.

Sandy is by far the most complicated of the characters because she lives her life for one thing only and that's Cerwin. She has no compassion for her children and could be characterized as a terrible mother until she redeems herself in the end.

Finally, there is Pat, the owner of the shop whose main issue surrounds her inability to have children and how that significantly impacts her life.

These characters are real and each individual personality compliments the other in such a manner that they relate well to each other in the novel and they gain strength for each other. This book was absolutely fantastic and the author was very vivid in her description of specific events, such as Tracy being taken from her foster parents.

I look forward to reading more novels by this author. This book is definitely a "sistergirl" book.

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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A Fantastic Book!, April 6, 2000
By 
Brian K. Walley (Clayton, Delaware) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Blessings: A Novel (Paperback)
Blessings is one of my all-time favorites and it's a book that I'm always telling my friends (and even strangers in the black bookstores) to read when someone wants to read a "good" book. I loved reading this book and sharing in the lives of Pat, Faye, Zuma, and Sandy. For me, this book had me feeling the full range of "happy" to "angry" depending on the circumstances, but, from the beginning to the end, this book really touched my heart. At least one character is practically guaranteed to make you "hate" her by the end of the book but it's a great book that makes you FEEL something, in my opinion. An excellent book that is very highly recommended!
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A very good book!, February 14, 2000
This review is from: Blessings: A Novel (Paperback)
I put this book to the side because I thought it was about just a beauty shop and I lost some interest. It came with perfect timing. I just got married and had a baby. Each woman had a story that I could relate to except Sandy. I think Sandy had a lot issues that resulted from her relationship with her mother and she should have been punished for what she did. She totally got away with murder (literally!). However, I can relate to Pat, Faye and Zuma, I have a wonderful marriage to a great man, I have a child that I love more than anything and I want to have a child before I turned 30. Sheneska did a really good job with helping you to see the emotion that each woman was feeling. I felt for all the women and they had real life issues. This book should be read by every woman, because we all can relate in some form or another and we all need to get our hair done! I highly recommend this book for anyone that it is looking for a meaningful read.
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Inside This Book (learn more)
First Sentence:
In this life there are mysteries that will never be fully understood by mere mortals. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
hair station, manicure station, shampoo bowl, adoption attorney, loose braids, hair bag, squinted her eyes, correspondence classes
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Miss Price, Shampoo Commercial, John Peters, Off the Hook Hair, Bruce Lee, Los Angeles, White Chocolate, Arbor Vitae, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Blond Streaked, Salvation Army, Sharon Bobber, Jason Jackson, Johnnie Cochran, San Fernando Valley, Sandy Dew, Silky Smooth, Stieneska Jackson, Tweety Bird
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