As Hot as It Was You Ought to Thank Me : A Novel [Bargain Price] [Paperback]

Nanci Kincaid (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 2005

From a place where you don't have to run away to find yourself, this novel's young heroine, Berry, joins the ranks of other memorable and spirited girl narrators such as Bone in "Bastard Out of Carolina," Kaye Gibbon's "Ellen Foster," Lily Owens in "The Secret Life of Bees," and Scout from "To Kill a Mockingbird."

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Nanci Kincaid's As Hot As It Was You Ought to Thank Me is the touchingly honest story of Berry Jackson, a young teenager growing up Pinetta, Florida, home to two churches, a school, and a gas station. Berry spends her days soaking up the lives of her parents, Ford and Ruthie, her brothers Sowell and Wade, and an amusing array of neighbors that include a wayward preacher, a shotgun toting father of six, and the town's (relatively) wealthy businessman. As Berry navigates her way through young adulthood, she unearths a number of truths and lies that will ultimately serve as the foundation for her sense of self. ("It was not really that I longed to be pretty so bad, I swear, it was that I longed to be real. In Pinetta it seemed like being pretty was the one thing guaranteed to make a girl real.")

The book starts off slowly, and some readers may find themselves losing interest in Kincaid's descriptions of Pinetta's long, hot summer days and their inhabitants. However, once the town is hit by a powerful tornado and Berry's father disappears with the town beauty, the pace picks up and readers are rewarded for their perserverance with an exciting tale of mystery and intrigue. The plot thickens when a chain gang rolls into town to help rebuild the roads and the school, and a certain convict steals the heart of Berry and the rest of the townsfolk. Even after his awful crime is revealed, the people of Pinetta can't help but keep a place for him in their hearts.

Kincaid does a commendable job of getting inside 13-year-old Berry's 13-year-old and showing us how no experience is ever truly black or white. In fact, Kincaid is so talented that by the end of the novel, while allegiances may have shifted a bit one way or another, readers will have a hard time saying goodbye to Berry and her supporting cast of memorable characters. --Gisele Toueg --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Kincaid's fourth novel (after Crossing Blood; Balls; Verbena) is a deliciously intimate portrayal of the sunstruck small town of Pinetta, Fla., as seen through the eyes of Berry, a 13-year-old trying to make sense of adult indiscretions and her own sexual awakening. Berry's father, Ford, is the town's self-righteous school principal; her mother, Ruth, has a crush on the preacher; her good-looking older brother, Sowell, has his "mind... on tits"; her younger brother, Wade is a specialist in "elaborate animal funerals." When Ford mysteriously disappears in the middle of a tornado with Rennie, the town's tragic teenage wannabe starlet, Berry and her family become the subject of much gossip and attention. In her father's absence, her mother shifts her attentions to a rich, hot-tempered neighbor, and Berry develops a crush on Raymond, a smooth-talking convict in town to help clean up after the storm. When Raymond saves Berry's life by coming between her and two rattlesnakes, it's she who fearlessly volunteers to suck the poison out of his leg. Hungry for affection, Berry ultimately gets what she's after, though when she's had it, she's not sure what to make of it. Narrated with childlike honesty and dead-on Southern flavor ("Used to be we would all get in the tub like a can of worms spilled into shallow ditch water"), this is a sticky, sultry gem. (Feb. 5)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• ISBN-10: 0316009148
• ASIN: B000FILL64
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,887,451 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Southern Lit as it should be, August 5, 2005

By 

D. Berry (Alabama) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: As Hot as It Was You Ought to Thank Me: A Novel (Paperback)

I absolutely loved this book!

I used to read a lot of Southern Lit, but too many authors today seem to think that being from the South and putting race in the book somewhere (preferably in a heavy-handed way) makes their books "Southern". In my opinion, Lewis Nordan is one of the few today who do it right. Now I have to add Nanci Kincaid to that list.

This book, is a classic example of the genre. The characters could have fallen straight out of a Welty work. Further, the situations in the small town of Pinetta rang true to me. I had no trouble picturing any of the events happening in the small Southern town I grew up in -- right down to the polite competition between the Baptists and the Methodists. Ms. Kincaid never really played that up, but anyone who grew up in a town like mine could easily identify.

Finally, the book was just plain well written. I was hooked right from the beginning -- a beautiful description of the constant, yet fruitless, quest to find a cool spot in a Southern summer. From there it just got better.

I won't claim that it's another "Mockingbird", but if you like the classic Southern Lit of Welty, Capote, or McCullers I think you'll enjoy this one as well.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An engaging novel!, April 27, 2005

By 

D. Martin - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: As Hot as It Was You Ought to Thank Me: A Novel (Paperback)

I loved this book and am glad I knew little about the plot. I always like the reviews that tell why a book is good or bad without revealing the plot - Robert Daley's review is an example of a good review.
Read this book and also read "Balls" by the same author for great stories that are never predictable and thoroughly engaging.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Ending Could Have Been Better, February 4, 2009

By 

Polly Castor - See all my reviews
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This review is from: As Hot as It Was You Ought to Thank Me: A Novel (Paperback)

I enjoyed the first two-thirds of this book better than the end. Initially I was giving it five stars but it slipped down to four by the end since I had already figured out the big revelation by then and we were left -- intentionally but annoyingly-- with loose ends and unanswered questions. (Where was the gun? And don't forget she had to have had the keys. And what about Babygirl's parentage?) I wish the ending could have been more believable and buttoned up more satisfactorily.

Still, this coming of age story had interesting, well-defined characters. It was an effortless, quick read. The writing was well done, full of poetic insight, symbolism, and metaphor. The sultry south was rendered palpably, and clearly hurricanes and snakes are not as devastating as human complexity.

Here are a few bits:

"One man can argue better than a group of them. A group goes silent when a woman insists on something."

"This made mother laugh. She laughed like you get a lawn mower started, just a couple of sputters at first, but then one of those sputters catches, fires up, and soon the motor is roaring. That was how mother got started laughing -- Jewel Langmont too. It was like they went crazy laughing, couldn't hardly breathe, gasping for air like a couple of fish, slapping their hands on the table top... It would be years before I understood the way laughing substituted for crying when women were being watched."

"Maybe all the truth really was, was everybody agreeing on something, like saying it enough made it so."

There was mystery and shrewdness and rich description in this perceptive book that leaves you still thinking about it.