Customer Reviews

The Cotton Queen

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

When The Cotton Queen opens it is the year 2004 and Laney Hoffman is being confronted by her teenage daughter Rachel about what the problem is between Laney and her mother Babs.

The story quickly moves back in time to when Babs was just a teenage girl with her whole life in front of her. She married her highschool sweet heart Tom, but time was not on their side. He was killed in an accident which left Babs on her own fighting for the right to keep Laney. Feeling that she had no choice, Babs moved away from her small town in Texas to live in Dallas. While there with Laney one more incident took place which forever changed the direction that Babs life was to take and altered her relationship with Laney.

Told in alternating narratives between Laney and Babs we slowly watch this mother daughter relationship change and not always for the better.

The Cotton Queen is not a book that is all sunshine and roses, but its a believable story that is filled with love, disagreements, and brings you full circle back to the year 2004.

When Babs Hoffman loses her husband after just a few years of marriage, she resists the idea of remarrying and instead moves herself and her young daughter, Laney, to Dallas. But what happens to her there changes the course of her life forever, and transforms her into an overprotective mother who is scared of the world.

Over the years, Babs struggles to make Laney into the person she thinks she should be. But to her dismay, Laney is just as stubborn as Babs is herself. Typical mother-daughter conflict ensues, but Morsi has such a fresh and engaging writing style that the story is interesting and compelling.

Ultimately, this book follows the lives of Babs, Laney, and Rachel (Laney's daughter) as they grow up, discover themselves, explore the world, and find that sometimes home is indeed the best place. Well-written and fast-paced, this book is hard to put down.

In McKinney, Texas Babs reaches the finals of the Cotton Queen Beauty pageant. There she meets and eventually marries air force mechanic Tom Hoffman. However, the happy couple remains together a short time as he dies in a maintenance accident during World War II. She returns home to raise their daughter Laney by herself though she has no employable skills as she was not trained for anything but marriage.

Years later Laney resents her June Cleaver 1950s mother. Instead Laney revolts holding her mom in contempt. To her chagrin, her seventeen years old daughter Rachel has entered the Cotton Queen pageant that Laney has always boycotted as demeaning. While Rachel understands both her mother and grandmother, she walks the middle wanting both to make peace and be there for her while knowing her father Stan and her two younger brothers will support her endeavor.

The story line rotates between Babs and Laney so that the audience obtains a close look at a generation gap wider than the Grand Canyon. The only common ground between the two females seems their love for Rachel (and her two brothers though they play minor roles). Interestingly both Rachel and Stan believe that Babs and Laney are two peas in a pod. Pamela Morsi provides an interesting look at a huge generational war.

Harriet Klausner

I really enjoyed seeing the relationship between a mother and daughter told from both points of view. The alternating chapters told by mother, then daughter were very well written.

I'm a long time fan of Pamel Morsi's work. She's simply one of the best writers out there today. With The Cotten Queen, she explores the ups and downs of mother/daughter relationships with characters who are both heartwarming and heartbreaking. I definitely recommend this.

A story about the relationship between mothers and daughters, life in the South (Texas in particular) - very well written and true to life. I could not read it fast enough ...

I have been reading Pamela Morsi's books for years,and she has NEVER written one I didn't like. This one is no exception! The story of a mother and daughter and their conflicts had me stopping every now and then and thinking of my own mother, and how I pulled away from her until I grew up and came to realize that no one ever could love me more than she does. Ms. Morsi moved me to laughter and tears with this one. I can't wait for her next book!

If you are a Jodi Picoult fan you will love these books. A similar style and great story lines. Reminds us of a time when we were younger or those moments in our lives that were life changing.

I couldn't put this book down!! I finished it in two day and that's with working 8 hours a day! The storyline is fantastic and it shows how people look at things differently. Both mother and daughter had such different points of view, yet were so much alike in other ways. I say HOORAY!! Read this for sure!!!!!

There's no one in The Cotton Queen named Jenny, but at times the book does feel a little bit like Forrest Gump. Babs and Laney take turns telling their story, which have powerful moments. At other times it just feels like a checklist. JFK in Dallas? Check. Reagan for president? Check. Oil crash or rise of Microsoft? Check. The main message is that we're a lot like our mothers and we should marry the man our parents pick out for us, even if said man is a 'geek'.

When it works, it's as good as anything Morsi has ever done. You really feel how the generation shaped the woman and how their own personal intolerance for seeing any other view but their own damages them. When it doesn't work, you're just impatient with them both and tired of hitting milestones of the twentieth century.