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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Engaging and Enlightening...but I missed Ava!,
By
This review is from: I Wish I Had a Red Dress (Hardcover)
I Wish I Had A Red Dress is Pearl Cleage's sequel to her best-selling debut novel What Looks Like Crazy On An Ordinary Day. Looks Like Crazy was Ava & Eddie's story but in Red Dress, Cleage's focuses on Ava's widowed sister, Joyce Mitchell. Cleage's takes readers back to Idlewild, Michigan which was once a popular resort community for affluent African Americans but is now decaying, however, the ordinary folks who live there are still working to overcome dysfunction and reclaim their lives. Joyce, continues to work at the center she founded The Sewing Circus and Community Truth Center(which has been affectionately dubbed "The Circus") as a social worker counseling young black women, many of whom are the product of single parent homes and many of whom are single mothers. Although Joyce has her work, her family, her friends and her town...who does she have to take care of her intimately and passionately as only a lover can do? Five years after Mitch's tragic accident, time is still standing still in the romance department for Joyce. While she has her memories, daydreams and self-pleasures none of those can take the place of a muscular, hard, dark and handsome African American male. Joyce knows that something is missing and that sometimes you really need the real thang...but sometimes Joyce is just afraid. Afterall, her father passed when she was sixteen, her mother committed suicide on her wedding night a year later, her son got hit by a car walking home from school when he was six and her daughter didn't make it to her first birthday. After all the other tragedies, Mitch was always the one constant in her life and now he was gone. Opening her heart and chancing love was an endeavor that Joyce wasn't sure she was ready or willing to undertake at 40something. As the story opens, Joyce has to put thoughts about relationships, love, desires and her personal needs on hold, because first, she must meet with state legislatures to secure their votes to fund the proposal she worked on the last three months regarding "The Circus" program. While Joyce is busy focusing on the girls and funding, her friends, Bill and Sister are busy playing matchmaker. Over dinner, Sister introduces Joyce to Nate Anderson who has just moved to the area to work at the local high school as a guidance counselor. Nate is a sensitive, understanding and supportive gentlemen and he touches emotions in Joyce that have long been suppressed but as fate would have it... there's much drama with the babydaddy of one of Joyce's girls that keeps Joyce from focusing on self and backing away from Nate. Will Nate be there to weather the emotional/mental storm with her and help her to realize that decent and loving African American males still exist and that if she lets her guards down and opens her heart she might just have a recent to purchase and wear that daring little red dress? Pearl Cleage has once again created a storyline with remarkable and memorable characters, however, readers looking for Ava might feel a little slighted as I Wish I Had a Red Dress is truly Joyce's story. In fact, I was a little disappointed that Ava wasn't given more presence in Red Dress and was only mentioned in passing. I like Joyce...she's the responsible, stable, older sista who's on a mission to help the less fortunate...all good qualities...but I missed the feistiness and wit of Ava. On an up note, as with "Crazy", Cleage's writing once again inspires and enlightens as she shows us that life is about taking chances, taking risks, embracing the past but letting go, moving forward and embracing life. Fans of What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day will enjoy this sequel from Pearl Cleage as she takes us back to Idlewild once again.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Powerful,Gratifying, Lively and a richly woven story,
This review is from: I Wish I Had a Red Dress (Hardcover)
I just finished reading Pearl Cleage's, I Wish I Had a Red Dress, which happens to be a continuation of What looks like Crazy on an ordinary day. What a powerful, surprisingly shocking and beauitfully woven story centered around Idlewild, Michigan. This book shines a spotlight on Joyce Mitchell the older sister of Ava and introduces us to people like Nate, Nikki, Tomika, Shelia, Sister and Bill, The Smitherman twins and the infamous Lattimore family. I was delighted that Pearl dedicated a book to Joyce and allowed her to share more of herself with us. It was a gratifying and wonderful book to read and well worth sharing with others. Joyce is a strong and remarkable woman, with so much to give and offer others and she does just that. The story is even laced with some comedy so, it's not too deep and heavy for you. While reading it I found myself rethinking various key moments in my own lifetime. Or as Oprah says, those light blub moments. This book has a liitle something, something for everyone and it's sure to be a book you won't soon forget. Happy reading and thanks Pearl for another delightful, life-changing and powerful read.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A wonderful surprise!,
By Cathy Goodwin (Silver City, NM) - See all my reviews
This review is from: I Wish I Had a Red Dress (Hardcover)
I picked up this book in the library, not familiar with theauthor, and wow! Pearl Cleage can write! She not only tells a good story, but she honors her craft. I loved lines like this: "She was watching Nik get into her car and drive off toward the danger just like they always do in the horror movies; gripping the wheel, gritting her teeth and swearing she doesn't believe in ghosts." Cleage is a WRITER. Cleage's heroine, a teacher-turned-social worker, combines sex with sensibility. The book is less about plot than about character; the heroine can get a little preachy about feminism but that's who she is, and it's not the same old story. The use of film as a learning tool is very real -- made me want to rent some of those videos myself. Reminded me of May Sarton, with a lot more bite, deeper characterization and much, much better writing. "Red dress" reaches way beyond an African-American audience and deserves to become another best-seller for the author.
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