Customer Reviews

Butterscotch Blues

5 star:		(60)
4 star:		(26)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Butterscotch Blues, by Margaret Johnson-Hodge, treats the reader to a realistic, complex story about love, female friendship, AIDS, and death. A group of four friends, Sandy, Janice, Britney, and Martha, search for romantic love and self-truth, wondering and learning whether the two are mutually exclusive. Through all their tribulations and triumphs, the constant factor that sustains them is their love and support of each other.

The story begins with Sandy, the main character, breaking up with a neglectful, detached boyfriend and meeting Adrian, a caring, thoughtful, and emotionally-available man. She is drawn to Adrian in part because of his light-skinned, African American beauty, a contrast to her own mahogany hue, and is surprised to find that he is actually more interested in and knowledgeable about his African heritage than she is. Sandy finds more respect and happiness in her relationship with Adrian than she has ever had, and much of what she learns she passes on to her other three friends. The other women experience various common facets of dating, including: meeting the man of one's dreams (Britney, who dates Maurice, a kind and generous suitor); having to reassess artificially high standards (Martha, who won't date anyone who's not a white-collar worker); and learning not to lower one's standards too much because of low self-esteem (Janice, who gets involved with a man who uses her and cruelly dumps her).

A crisis ensues between Adrian and Sandy when Sandy learns that Adrian has a wife, Gennifer, and that he and Gennifer are both HIV positive, the result of Gennifer's infidelity. After much soul searching, Sandy overcomes her fear of infection and losing Adrian to the deadly disease and decides that their love is strong enough to sustain them. Later events shake that resolve and cause Sandy and her friends to readjust their views about what true love means and to alter their decisions about the commitments they make.

Butterscotch Blues is a moving, realistic depiction of friendship between women and the decisions women make in regard to their romantic relationships. The dialogue, situations, and characters ring true. An interesting theme throughout the story is the interracial bigotry that occurs between Blacks based on the lightness of their skin, and is illustrated by Sandy's feelings about the messages her family has sent her regarding her dark-skinned appearance. The author's poignant treatment of AIDS as a potentially fatal disease highlights the fact that there is no cure and that despite improved treatment AIDS is still a serious pandemic. The best part of the book is that not only do the characters learn valuable lessons, but the reader does as well.

This book was excellent, I read it in one day because I couldn't put it down. The characters were believable and I could feel the love that the main characters had for one another. Plot development was excellent, the author really spent time knowing where these people were going. I loved the bonds of sister friendship and how the author explored the unsightly feelings of jealousy that we sometimes feel when it is a group of four friends, just trying to keep it together and work through our own petty issues and keep the friendship intact.

I found myself sobbing like a baby near the end, this book was an emotional release for me. As a young widow I could relate too well to the pain of losing someone you love.

Thank you for such a wonderful addition to my book collection, I will be ordering all of your books from now on.

Butterscotch Blues is a story about friendships, about relationships and about vows. It's about 4 young ladies who met and bonded in college, who vowed to always be there for each other and to not let relationships diminish what they shared. Margaret, is an Assistant District of Attorney, 7 years overdue for a relationship, but her bar is too high, her man must have,'PhD', appending his name. Janice desperately wants a relationship and will empower any man to make her happy. Britney is timid and overweight and is in the friendship because she has no where else to be. But this is really not their story, this story belongs to dark and lovely Sandy Hutchinson, the black sheep of her family, literally. It belongs to a gorgeous Trinidadian man with butterscotch eyes, who captures her heart, invades her space and shares her greatest tragedy. It is a story of how the friendship shifts when the relationship pendulum swings to one and not the other and the friends are not there for each other. Ultimately this is a story of vows and the sanctity of their meaning. The story of a commitment that allows Sandy to hold on, as the tragedy unfolds. And it is the story of how to live the words, 'in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, till death us do part'.

When I read the last page and closed the book, I sat with tissue in hand and gathered my emotions. I wanted to call someone and offer my support, then I smiled as I realized this wasn't real.

What I loved most about this book, is I felt it. Felt the love, the indecision, the sadness, the despair, and then I felt the acceptance, the oneness and finally the peace.

aNN Brown, The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers

Close friends Sandy, Martha, Janice, and Britney are single, black women in their mid-thirties. All of them share in common the deep need to find Mr. Right. They go to singles clubs together and celebrate the ups and downs each one feels.

After meeting Trinidad immigrant Adrian Burton, Sandy is ready to toss Brian, who she has been with for several years, out of her life. For both Sandy and Adrian it is love at first sight. However, she cannot understand why his family treats her so poorly. When she leans the truth about what he has hidden from her, will she have the strength to cement their relationship or will her low self-esteem send her fleeing from her beloved?

BUTTERSCOTCH BLUES showcases African-American women, but is a story that transcends race and culture because any woman could have been its star. The novel is a testament to the power of love and the strength of one's spirit to accept the hard knocks while fully enjoying life. Sandy is everyone as she represents the best of humanity even with her flaws and doubts. When the going gets tough, the unsure Sandy gets tougher due to her unselfish love that makes her a heroine that readers will cherish.

Harriet KLausner

Butterscotch Blues is a contemporary novel unlike any I've ever read. Although it has the familiar African American fiction touchstones - professional female protaganist and her "girls", some supportive some not, men who talk the romance talk but don't walk the romance walk, women who give themselves emotionally without using common sense - this story will take the reader on an emotional journey sure to keep you thinking long after you close the book.

Sandy and Adrian meet, hook-up, fall in love, break up, get back together, break up again, and reuinite once more in this before this book draws to a close. Driven apart alternately by Adrian's secret and Sandy's distrust, when they reunite they must also deal with Sandy's insecurity over her dark skin, her infatuation with Adrian's "butterscotch" tone, Adrian's aloof family members, and some of Sandy's girl's resenting the time she spends with Adrian.

Without disclosing the particular plot twists, suffice it to say that Butterscotch Blues will certainly give you pause for thought. Overall it is well written and touching, although I found the pettiness between the girlfriends silly, and sometimes felt that not enough time was spent developing characters/relationships. I highly recommend this book. I will be buying other works by this author.

WARNING: If you don't want to know the specific plot twists of this novel, don't read much further. Spoilers are contained in some of the other reviews.

Prepare yourself to encounter an avalanche of emotions that'll transport you into the very pages where this intense story takes place. It's a sensitive story that embraces the euphoria and hardships of friendship and love. Mulitple situations arise stacking on one another so high that by the conclusion of the novel, tears are stinging in your eyes, and you are devouring each page in anticipation of the next. Margaret's vivid descriptions, poignant characters, and piercing words transport you into the lives of Sandy, Britney, Janice, and Martha as they live, love, learn, loose, and grow. You'll feel every emotion that they feel. With flaming lyrics, Margaret lures you into their lives plucking your emotions until you feel that you are indeed one of the characters in the novel. Every character in this progressively realistic novel loves, learns, and experiences loss, but most amazingly, you'll feel it too.

I am the kind of reader who loves to become immersed in a book; to let it take my life over for a few days and carry me to another world. When I first began reading Margaret Johnson Hodge I was pleased to find a writer who wrote about the ordinary, everyday kind of black people I knew while growing up and still know today. They're not suprstars. They watch TV, they care for their families and want love and understanding like every human being I've ever come across--Black or White. And like most people I know, they are always trying to find out who they are and what they think their purpose in this life on this Earth really means.

In her latest book, Butterscotch Blues, she has gone out on a limb to place those everyday characters in a very scary, yet reality-based, situation. And she does it in a way that was so real that I found myself wanting to get on the phone and call Sandy Hutchinson to give her a piece of my mind when she ran out on Adrian.

Though it moved a little slow in the beginning, I found myself trying to carve out time during my busy day in order to open the book and resume the story because, once the story began to move forward, every part of my mind and body had become involved.

I believe that this is Ms. Johnson Hodge's best book--one that signals readers to be on the lookout for more from this author. She's not trying to be like other writers, she has found her voice and is running with it. If writer, John Oliver Killens were alive today, he would surely put Margaret Johnson Hodge on his list of 'long distance runners,' a term he used for writers who were not just a flash in the pan but those who intended to stay in the race for the long haul. If we're lucky, Margaret Johnson Hodge is just getting her first wind and has many, many more laps to complete.

You KNOW a novel is good when you stay up till the wee hours of the morning reading it. You KNOW a novel is good when you'd rather ride then drive, so you can read. You KNOW a novel is good when you get choked up and have to put it down to compose yourself before you continue.

Butterscotch Blues was a marvelous read. Kudos to Margaret Johnson-Hodge for bring real life issues to the table and not sugar coating anything. The characters were vibrant and multi-faceted. I loved Sandy and Adrian. I loved Janice and Cliff. Loved Rachel (Margaret had that Trinidadian dialect DOWN!)

Not everyone in the book is a likable character but that's how real life is. I really enjoyed the parent's roles and the strength of the two fathers. The twists and turns, ups and downs and the ultimate sacrifices made were very touching. You will find yourself shaking your head in anger as well as rooting for these characters.

I won't give anything away, but I will say that I teared up so many times in reading this book. The story is a true testimant to unconditional love and its many forms: self-love, family, friends and romance. I also love how she bought self-image (light skin versus dark skin) into play. She also incorporates her favorite song into the story's theme, brilliantly.

I highly recommend this book & will read her other novels.

Peace. CLB.

Butterscotch Blues by Margaret Hodge is a multi-dimensional relational novel which details Sandi's(the main character/protagonist) life with family, friends and new beau Adrian. Butterscotch Blues was painstakingly emotional but oh so compelling, well crafted and a page turner from the onset so I was able to read this wonderfully told story in one sitting. So many thoughts ran through my head as I watched the relationship of Sandi and Adrian unfold and experienced heart-wrenching, soul stirring situations that made me wonder "could I express that type of unconditional love if I were in the same situation". I liked that Sandi's character had dimension and depth and as such we were able to see her beyond just her beau; we lived with her through sisterfriend and familial relationships. Girlfriends that we knew...and could call our friends...Brittany(the overweight sister who's the last one to usually have a man), Martha(the sisterfriend who only dates men with big pockets/wallets)and Janice(the friend who always has to have a man-any man-even a piece of man is okay). We're up close and personal with Sandi and Adrian's families as we explore issues of betrayal and skin color divisiveness in the AA community. Butterscotch Blues is a complex story filled with crafty dialogue, vivid imagery, realistic situations, well-developed characters and plot twists and turns; it's a story of hope, love and living each day to the fullest. Ms. Hodge is truly a wonderful storyteller as Butterscotch Blues is a story that you live and experience long after you've read the book. Butterscotch Blues was one of My Top 10 books for 2000 and its a book that I recommend for your reading pleasure. Pick Up Your Copy Today!

This novel kept me weeping for most of the story. Realistic, heart warming and heart breaking, I consider this the best of Ms. Hodge's work. Long after you finish the book, the characters and their plights will haunt you. Stories of love, friendship and forgiveness are tied expertly together in a way that will have you laughing and crying until the very end.