Review: Saving CeeCee Honeycutt

By CeeCee Honeycutt's twelth year mental illness has taken her mother's life. Camille Honeycutt has developed a reputation for wandering the streets in old prom dresses, and one of these walks ends with her hit by a truck. CeeCee is taken in by a distant aunt and moved to Savannah. In Savannah CeeCee finds an entirely new life, including stable guardians and adults who show her love for the first time.

This is a very southern story. It is also a feel-good story. CeeCee is a child desperately in need of love. In the heat of the Savannah summer, she finds that love. I enjoyed this book, but I did have some quibbles. The treatment of racism in late-1960s Georgia is a bit too pat, and the resolution to racial problems a bit too neat. Oletta seems entirely too happy to spend nearly all of her time away from her own family. Racism is fairly minimal, and the only racist characters are the "bad" ones. The easy resolution of the one racist episode belies belief. Still, this book certainly has its charms, and CeeCee is a very likable character.

Beth Hoffman, Saving CeeCee Honeycutt (Penguin, 2010) ISBN: 0143118579