Customer Reviews

Divorcing Dwayne: A Novel

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

It is a good thing that I was on spring break when I started this book, for if it had been during the term, I would have had to scramble to give the students enough to do. Once I opened it, I was hooked. Miles creates a set of characters set in the south and generates some of the best dialog I have ever read.
Francine Harper is married to Dwayne and when she catches him in her bed with a silicon-enhanced stripper, she takes a gun and wildly shoots at them. Fortunately she misses and she is arrested, which starts the actions of the title. Francine then tries to maintain her life through a great deal of trial as she learns to become a confident, capable woman.
Getting there is quite a story, involving her strange friends, her even stranger family; a topless barber shop, Dwayne's repeated antics, the mafia, FBI agents; Francine's cellmates, various people in the legal system and her role in a Hollywood movie that makes her famous and rich. My favorite character in the book is not Francine, but her grandmother Nanny Lou. As the story opens, she is accusing her dead husband of running away with another filly. Towards the end of the book she discovers that she has cancer in one breast and decides to have both breasts removed. She calls the surgeon's office and asks if they will do a two-for-one special. Then, when she is in the hospital she brags to everyone how she is going to get a new set of boobs and goes around flashing people. When told that they will take some of the fat from her abdomen to rebuild the breasts, she insists that some also be removed from her hips. She saw some hot jeans on the home shopping network and wants to fit in them. Great character!
If you want to have a great laugh, read this rollicking, hectic story about some very eccentric and entertaining people. Be forewarned, it is very hard to put down.

This is one of the funniest books I've ever read. There's a laugh on every page (and often three or four) and the characters are priceless, yet very real.

The plot is so engaging you better prepare yourself for a long reading session. I can't say enough about this clever, and engaging novel about a relationship gone wrong. Anyone who has gone through a divorce can relate. It's the type of book that will be passed from girlfriend to girlfriend.

Divorcing Dwayne is hilarious, heartwarming and wise. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book! My husband wasn't happy ~ he had to wait for his dinner. If you want a good book with great characters and a good plot, pick up a copy. Ms. Miles knows how to keep you turning the pages. I truly recommend it.

What a great book! I started it and finished it over a long weekend. I have shared it with several people in the office and they all love it! Once you start this book, you can not put it down. I am anxiously awaiting "Dear Dwayne."

Jackie Lee Miles is an author with a rare literary gift: She can write comedy as brilliantly as she writes tragedy. Roseflower Creek and Cold Rock River were powerful and heartwrenching. Divorcing Dwayne is out-and-out hilarious. Francine Harper's madcap antics are non-stop and just when you think it can't get any funnier, it does. And when you meet up with Nanny Lou, the most wonderful and wackiest grandma ever, you will know for certain how wildly imaginative the Miles sense of humor really is. I can't wait to read the sequels!

Pour a glass of sweet tea and be prepared for a downhome countryfried good southern story. Thank you JL Miles, you're the bestest!!

When I read a book, my goal is to totally escape into another world. That is exactly what J.L Miles has allowed us to do in this hilariously funny novel about a southern girl trying to do the right thing and always seems to end up in more trouble. This is the first of a three part series, and I can't wait to get book number two!!! A must read for everyone, just for the fun of it!!!

Francine Harper is having a really bad day.
> She's been arrested for trying to shoot her husband
> after she finds him in their bed with his ex-girlfriend.
> She's also pretty disappointed that she missed...three
> times. And so the story begins.
"Divorcing Dwayne" tells the story of Francine and Dwayne's relationship. As the story progresses, Francine also has to deal with issues regarding some trouble that Dwayne has gotten himself into with some shady characters. She experiences a myriad of feelings as she goes in and out of jail and as her divorce progresses. It is a funny, laugh out loud book, yet as a divorced woman, I found myself relating to a lot of what she was feeling - including her occasional desire to shoot the bastard, ummmh... I mean Dwayne.
The story takes place in rural Georgia, where divorces only take 30 days to process. Ironically, having never been in Georgia before, I was headed out there from California to be with a niece that was going through a divorce. The humor in the book, especially about Georgia, really helped lighten my mood. The timing couldn't have been better. While my niece was chasing flys around her house with a fly swatter, I read that flys are the state bird in Georgia!
Anyway, I highly recommend this novel. Women's reader groups will absolutely love it. Divorced women will relate, and anybody that just loves a good, fun story will soak it right up. I look forward to reading the next books in this series.

When Francine Harper catches her husband Dwayne in their bed with another woman, she shoots at the two of them. Luckily she's a lousy shot and misses both of them, but she is still hauled off to jail on assault charges. While awaiting trial Francine decides to divorce Dwayne and start a new life. She gets a role in a movie being shot in her town of Pickville Springs and even embarks on a new romance. But Francine can't quite get Dwayne out of her mind - $30,000 has mysteriously appeared in their joint checking account and she think he's involved with the mob and could be in danger. When Dwayne disappears she is convinced she is right, but the police think she's behind his disappearance. Now she has to find him and clear her name so she can really move on with her life.

"Divorcing Dwayne" is an extremely funny if somewhat disjointed novel. The book has three strengths: the setting; the characters; and the humor. The setting is in the South - Pickville Springs, Georgia - and author J. L. Miles does an excellent job of capturing life in a small southern city. The book is filled with great if somewhat over the top characters including Francine, her friend Ray Anne, her grandmother Nanny Lou (who is one of the most over the top but funniest characters in the book), and her cousin Trudy among others. The humor is what really drives the book and makes it so good - the book is full of humorous bits. Some of the bits are laugh out loud funny, especially the moments with Nanny Lou (I loved her reaction when she found out she had breast cancer). Some of the humor involves using plays on words - the movie being filmed in Pickville Springs is called Oh Mother, Oh Father, Where Art Thou and is directed by Frederick Ford Gumbello. And some of the humor is a bit lazy - while there are some funny courtroom scenes, the jury selection reads like a series of jokes taken from the Internet rather than something original. Unfortunately, the plot often seems to take a back seat to the humor. The book tends to wander - jumping from scene to scene and at times I lost track of the chronology of the story line.

"Divorcing Dwayne" is very funny if somewhat loosely plotted.

"Divorcing Dwayne" is the first in a three-part humorous series based on the marital trials of Georgia girl, Francine Harper, that the author labels as `grit-lit'.

When Francine first met Dwayne, her mama told her that man `wasn't worth losing her pants over,' and her Daddy just rolled his eyes and went back to his newspaper. If only she'd listened, she would not have ended up in jail for trying to shoot Dwayne and his stripper girlfriend, Carla, when she caught them in the act.

The antics get crazier from there. Francine, backed up with her best friend Ray Anne and her step-sister Trudy, who really isn't a step-sister, she just lived with her family, get into antics from "Backyard Bridal" organization of a wedding, which `wasn't too bad save that a 12 foot crocodile showed up,' to dealing with the mob, the FBI, and various nefarious locals in between.

Probably the funniest character in the whole novel is Nanny Lou, who's a cross between Grandma Mazur and Maxine (of the Hallmark Shoebox card fame). This purple haired granny's got a few bricks shorter than a load, but she's always into something and she's funny enough to make me laugh in the dentist's office, which trust me, is pretty darn funny.

The formula here isn't original. We've got our heroine with her crazy sidekicks, nutty grandma. Throw in some man trouble and some criminals, and you've got a `Plum' of a tale. What keeps this story from being just another knockoff is the writing itself. If I'm laughing when I'm scared witless, you're going to have a great time on the beach or in a plane--and people will stop you and ask you what you're laughing so much over.

Rebecca Kyle, June 2008