Customer Reviews

Ugly Ways

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I loved reading this story. I felt it was thought provoking as well as an entertaining read. The things that Muhdear did to her girls reminds me of a hurt soul who suffered herself and did not know how to treat her husband nor her children. I found it incredible how the girls found love and joy within and where able to triumpth over the rough childhood to excel and become the women they were meant to become.

I love this book. I give it 5 stars for being a thoroughly entertaining page turner. The author's style makes this a fast, fun and easy read. If you are reading this book in public, invariably someone will walk up, notice the title and start laughing out loud. You won't regret buying this one.

I called my own Mom in the midst of reading it and said, "I'll explain later but I just want to thank you for NOT being Mudear."

We discussed Ugly Ways during my recent vacation to visit family in Georgia. I'm ordering copies so we can all read this book together. I'm sure I'll enjoy it the second time around just as much. It's probably been over 10 years since I read it and it still sticks in head as one of the most fun novels I've ever read.

This novel is not as profound and deeply disturbing as a good Morrison novel (whose books I absolutely LOVE reading), but Mudear IS a real case study. Which makes "Ugly Ways," a memorable novel it's own right. You'll never, ever forget Mudear and what happens when she goes through her "change" (hint: it's NOT about menopause).

Buy this book. Have a good time. You deserve it.

I loved it, loved it, LOVED IT!!! Mudear reminds me so much of one of my relatives that it's not funny. Mrs. Ansa's writing style is refreshing and profound. Great book and I look even more forward to the movie.

Ugly Ways, written by Tina McElroy Ansa was a fiction novel about three black sisters who are reunited due to thier mother's death. With the three totally different attitudes each has, it's most interesting to read how they encounter the situations after their mother's death. This novel was an excellent choice. I can most relate to it because my mother is the baby of three sisters also. Many of the situations and actions shown by the Lovejoy sisters are a lot like my very own mother and aunts. I think Ms. Ansa did a great job of displaying how family must be stong and stand together in times of need. This was a great book, I recommend it to anyone who needs a cry and laugh.

The novel focuses on the lives of Mudear, her three daughters (Betty, Emily, and Annie), and husband (Ernest) and the havoc she caused in their lives. The author weaves back and forth through time to paint a sad story of children struggling to make sense and adjust to a night-time gardening, TV-watching, self-absorbed, man-hating, non-nurturing, dictator-like mother. While the husband/father, Ernest Lovejoy, can escape into his job at the chalk mines, the everlasting effect she has on her children's life is profound. Mudear believed she was instilling virtues of self-reliance, independence, and self-confidence into her daughters, but soon learns (via her ghost) the motherly lessons has wrecked havoc in their adult relationship with men, has lead one daughter into a rushed marriage just to escape from home, and contributed to another's nervous breakdown. Although all the girls are successful professionally, it stems from their desire to please Mudear and satisfy her very high expectations. The pivotal event is the mother's funeral where it brings the family together and only then do the years of suppressed anger, resentment, and frustration finally surface and the healing begins. The book is easy to read and follow-there are detailed descriptions, and lots of funny, entertaining dialogue to keep the story flowing.

I liked this book a lot. It made me want to laugh, cry and murder an already dead woman. It's the story of love cut off too fast for no real reason. The three sisters were holding on to so much pain from their mother that they could barely fuction in their own lives. Ms. Ansa truly out did herself with creating believeable characters that you can understand and relate to. This book is a great AA author starter book.

My own late mother was a sweetheart, but her evil sister that helped raise me was Mudear. She may not have been as extreme, but the orneriness, the cutting words, and complete oblivion to the pain she created was similar to Tina McElroy Ansa's character's. And I know of plenty others like her -- mothers, grandmothers and stepmothers. When this book was first published in 1993 there was all this discussion about how the author exploded the myth of the selfless, loving Black matriarch. I don't kow that I agree with all that, but Tina McElroy Ansa is one of my favorite authors, and I loved this book.

This book was sad and funny. Some of Mudear's sayings had me in tears! Who in the world would rear their girls with the axiom "A man don't give a damn about no woman"? Mudear even had the girls repeat that to their father.

This book is about the relationship between mothers and daughters. Not that Hallmark, sunshine and ice cream stuff, but the sometimes bitter relationship between adult females and the woman who shaped their lives. Gathering for a funeral is something we've all done. That's the time for reminiscing. I enjoyed how the author used that occasion as a vehicle for the Lovejoy girls to come to terms with their mother who brought them neither love nor joy.

This book is exciting and then again it is scary. Briefly, this book is about two sisters who come back to find out that their mother is dead, but not buried. All the women have to bury their past in order to move on. This is a great book and to find out if they really buried their mother you will have to read to find out. This book is easy to read and it will keep interested...not to mention laughing!!! :)

I read it a few years ago and it was better the second time around. Awesome. I knew the three sisters, mudear and the dad
on an intimate level

Thank you Mz McElroy

Dr Patricia Gordon

Thanks for having Ugly Ways on the Kindle. I have a hard copy and audio tape versions. I have taken this book half way around the world. I read it every couple of years. It is one of my favorite books. I hope Ugly Ways will be on audio CD (not just cassettes). I love to listen to it in my car. I would also like Taking After Mudear on the kindle and on CD.
Thanks again