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Glow

by Jessica Maria Tuccelli (Goodreads Author)

3.77 of 5 stars 3.77 · rating details · 339 ratings · 120 reviews

“Fans of The Help, this one’s for you: A tale of ghosts, slavery, racism, and redemption.” —Ladies’ Home Journal

October 1941. Eleven-year-old Ella McGee sits on a bus bound for her Southern hometown. Behind her in Washington, D.C., lie the broken pieces of her parents’ love story—a black father drafted, an activist mother an activist mother of Scotch-Irish and Cherokee des...more

Hardcover, 336 pages

Published March 15th 2012 by Viking Adult

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Mar 16, 2012 rameau rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: arc-galley, annoying-1st-3rd-voice-mixing, historical, ghosts, something-positive-shelf, recommending, read-in-2012

Glow starts with a quiet, loving moment between two people. It quickly turns into something more sinister. Soon a mother is rushing to save her daughter, a child who thinks of her as a sister. They go to the bus stop, but there's only room for one, and the mother sends the child ahead alone. Few hours later a phone call reveals the awful truth–the child, Ella, never made to their home town.

Tuccelli throws the reader into the young mother's skin just before sitting them down with the eleven year...more Glow starts with a quiet, loving moment between two people. It quickly turns into something more sinister. Soon a mother is rushing to save her daughter, a child who thinks of her as a sister. They go to the bus stop, but there's only room for one, and the mother sends the child ahead alone. Few hours later a phone call reveals the awful truth–the child, Ella, never made to their home town.

Tuccelli throws the reader into the young mother's skin just before sitting them down with the eleven year old girl talking to her dog. She awakens you after a nightmare with gentle hands of an old woman and moves you through the years into another century, into another world. Still further into the past we go before all the pieces are uncovered and the puzzle picture starts to form. It's a gruesome montage of slavery, racism, violence, and life.

It's especially fascinating to an outsider.

I'm not an American, but I've learned enough about the recent American history to recognise certain events. I'm also a fair headed and skinned Scandinavian who doesn't have a clue what being brown or black means. But I was a girl once, now I am a woman, always a daughter, though yet not a mother, and I do recognise the bond between a mother and daughter. I recognise the love, the anxiety, the grief, and the joy. I recognise the human emotions.

I didn't see my complexion darken, but I did feel the dirt under my fingernails and I flinched when the strap sang. I saw a biplane soar and I winced at every demand of freedom papers. That is Tuccelli's talent. She can transport you into another time and place and show you what life was like a little over 150 years ago. She can talk to you in different voices and not sound the same each time. She can bring to life the most gruesome pictures from a history book and show you how people got to that dark place. She can also show you hope.

For me, this book blurs the line between fact and fiction in a good way. It draws from actual events and proposes a story that most likely isn't true, but if feels like it could be. It makes the history be about people, not dates and words on a paper.

As much as I loved this story, I didn't love all of it. I abhor multiple first person points of view in any tense. They're impossible to write right. Tuccelli comes damn near it though. Willie Mae and Riddle Young have two very distinctive voices, and even I might be able to recognise their chapters from a random page sampling. Unfortunately Ella's and Mia's chapters aren't quite as unique and without contextual clues I wouldn't be able to separate one adolescent from another. For a native English speaker it might be an easier task. There are also a few long paragraphs of storytelling that qualify as infodumping. It's understandable in a book of this scope, but it didn't make absorbing them any easier.

I'm glad I stuck with it, though, and I'm telling you this book is worth a read.

I received an Advanced Readers Copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley.(less)

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Anachronist A great review - I also like it when the author makes you move in time and space, creating a virtual reality with her/his narration so to speak.

"This...more
Mar 16, 2012 02:44am

rameau Anachronist wrote: "A great review - I also like it when the author makes you move in time and space, creating a virtual reality with her/his narratio...more
Mar 16, 2012 04:00am

Anachronist It apparently was in 1850s, at least to women. Heavens knows what it did to the men. Impotence?

I wouldn't be surprised if some people blamed excessiv...more
Mar 16, 2012 12:19pm

May 19, 2013 Rachel Hilton rated it 3 of 5 stars

I received this book as a Goodreads giveaway.

I really don't know how to rate this book. I will start out by saying that this is not a book for any person just looking for a "light" read. It definitely is not. Second...in all honesty, I had
to lay it aside a few times as I became either bored or so mixed up I despaired of finishing it. However I did finish it.

The pluses....This author is very good. You can tell that she has done a lot of research before writing this book. The family tree in the f...more

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Sep 15, 2012 Spinningjenny rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is probably a 3.5 for me. Beautifully written tale about small town Georgia and the intertwining history of its families. I was engrossed by the characters and drawn in by their stories, though Mia and Ella's narratives were hard for me to tell apart at first. There are a lot of great things about this book--the descriptions were evocative without veering into self-indulgence and the interplay of race relations between white, black and Cherokee rang true to me. I thought it was a sensitivel...more

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Jul 27, 2012 Cindy Hudson rated it 4 of 5 stars

When Amelia McGee gets a threatening rock through her window on the eve of a picket by blacks in Washington, D.C. in 1941, the first things she thinks to do is send her daughter Ella back to the homestead in Georgia where she will be safe. But something goes wrong on the way. The bus breaks down and deposits Ella late. When she begins to walk to her uncle’s home, two men in a pickup attack her, but she’s rescued before she is seriously injured. So begins the tale in Glow, a novel by Jessica Mari...more When Amelia McGee gets a threatening rock through her window on the eve of a picket by blacks in Washington, D.C. in 1941, the first things she thinks to do is send her daughter Ella back to the homestead in Georgia where she will be safe. But something goes wrong on the way. The bus breaks down and deposits Ella late. When she begins to walk to her uncle’s home, two men in a pickup attack her, but she’s rescued before she is seriously injured. So begins the tale in Glow, a novel by Jessica Maria Tuccelli that starts with these early stirrings of the Civil Rights Movement and goes back in time to slavery and the removal of Native Americans from their land.

In remote Hopewell County, Georgia, a mix of fiercely independent people worked a hardscrabble existence in the hills. When preacher Solomon Bounds brings in a hardy strain of tobacco and builds a home with his family and slaves, he lays the footwork for a dynamic that will exist for generations to come.

The storytellers are mostly women: Amelia, Ella and Willa Mae Cotton. Ella is still young and impressionable, not aware of the cruelties of the world for a mixed race child in the 1940s. Amelia suffered the taunts of children who called her a half-breed when she was young, and she remembers her Cherokee grandmother sharing with her the lore of her people. She couldn’t understand hating or loving someone because of the color of their skin, and it seemed natural to her to fall in love with Obadiah Bounds, a black man who is Ella’s father. Willa Mae was born into slavery, and she knew that both her happiness and grief depended on the character of the man who owned her. She navigated the tricky waters of freedom and survived as a bridge from the old ways to the generations that came after her.

Throughout the saga, Glow paints a story of people for generations who want nothing more than the freedom to decide their own fate and care for their families. It’s a sweeping tale that reminds me of Cold Mountain with it’s descriptions of life in the Georgia mountains, and of The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman for its scope of American history. Mother-daughter book clubs with girls aged 15 and above will find a lot to talk about including the role of women in the times represented, slavery, Civil Rights and the relocation of Native Americans from their homeland.

The publisher provided me with a copy of this book to review.
(less)

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Jun 18, 2012 Celeste rated it 3 of 5 stars

Very, very torn between 3-star and 4-star review... but I'm going with three because I got bored several times while reading this book. It just had too many slow parts for my liking - I prefer something that keeps me up all night because I can't wait to see what happens next.

It's a very complex story spanning hundreds of years and connecting dozens of characters - and considering the epic proportions of the tale to be told, I'm really impressed that it was so coherent. I did have to keep going b...more

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May 04, 2012 Gayle rated it 5 of 5 stars

If I could, I would give this book ten stars. I don't know what the criteria is for a masterpiece, but in my opinion, this meets any requirements for that honor.

What beautiful, beautiful language. The characters are magnificently presented so you feel as if you truly know these people. The smells, the sights, the sounds are all there to make this a unique experience.

It travels from the 1800s up to WWII. Here is an interview with the author: http://us.penguingroup.com/static/htm...
If you'll liste...more

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Mar 13, 2012 Nancy rated it 4 of 5 stars

4.5 Stars

What a talented author this is! It is one thing to tie together a generation or two. Quite another to tie together a couple of family trees and generations.

The book is told by multiple perspectives in different time periods. The first voice introduces a couple of characters and the current conflict. The next voice might be a character introduced by the previous character but eventually they all tie together into the same family tree, although not a straight line. The cultures cross be...more

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Mar 19, 2012 Georgette rated it 4 of 5 stars

A really great book. I will be recommending to those who need a great book club pick.
It reminded me a lot of Ann Patchett's earlier novels, and Alice Hoffman's earlier books also.
Ella's sister Mia sends her off on a bus in the middle of the night, to escape a possible racial crime against her. She gets dropped off(with her dog) in the middle of Georgia on a roadside, where two strangers assault her and leave her for dead, once they are happened upon by passing motorists.The passing motorists ar...more

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Sep 07, 2012 Amy rated it 4 of 5 stars

"One Hundred Years of Solitude" set in a remote mountainous corner of northeastern Georgia. One storyline involves Amelia, aka Mia, mostly telling about her childhood in the 1920s, with a little bit about her daughter Ella in 1941. Another storyline involves Willie Mae and her family, from about 1830 to 1870. Both storylines are about the powerful love of mothers. Both deal with the beauty of nature, and the absurdity of Southern obsessions about race.

The writing is fantastic. It appeals to all...more "One Hundred Years of Solitude" set in a remote mountainous corner of northeastern Georgia. One storyline involves Amelia, aka Mia, mostly telling about her childhood in the 1920s, with a little bit about her daughter Ella in 1941. Another storyline involves Willie Mae and her family, from about 1830 to 1870. Both storylines are about the powerful love of mothers. Both deal with the beauty of nature, and the absurdity of Southern obsessions about race.

The writing is fantastic. It appeals to all senses. It focuses on complex characters. It skillfully changes voice. It incorporates history and folklore, from Cherokee legends about constellations, to "haints" and "hoo-doo," to a 1920s air show and the KKK.

My one criticism is that the interweaving of the two storylines wasn't necessary. All this viewpoint shifting seems to overcomplicate things--it's as if lately publishers/editors are convinced that a reader will be bored unless each chapter drops her into a different character's head. Not so.

Here, the story of Willie Mae lost some dramatic tension because it popped up halfway through the Mia/Ella story. I already knew who'd end up together and more or less how b/c I'd already met their 1941 selves. Then the Mia/Ella story was hard to get back into. I'd forgotten a lot of the 20th century characters while I spent 100+ pages in the 19th century. I think the book would have worked just fine in plain old chronological order. Added bonus: the device of having every character believe she was seeing ghosts wouldn't have been necessary. The ghosts weren't that convincing, and I kept forgetting about the glow.

But the writing is gorgeous. Where has this author been, and how fast can she get something else out?

"'[T]his house a sit-tight house, secure against ne'er-do-well haints and hidden hidey-hole deep . . . .'"

"Don't matter how much folks sought her wisdom or her mojos, don't matter she was the great queen granny woman, the master hoo-dooer, she had an ache for love, the one thing she couldn't muster. No anvil dust mixed with sugar and a pinch of double salt, no graveyard dirt or dried rattle-snake head would bring him to her door."

[About a calendar:] "It seemed a most static interpretation, each day measured by a vacant, empty box, each month with naught but a title to set it apart. A sad view of the zodiac . . . ."

"Ah balms; ah nectars; ah elixirs of life."

"[I]t was he who had brought the fraternity of Americanism and lily white to Hopewell County, quietly enrolling men over the course of four years, pushing its revitalized ideas of Protestantism, patriotism, politics, picnics, and parades . . . . Almost the entire white population of Hopewell had been inveigled or charmed."(less)

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May 26, 2012 Lydia Presley rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012, coming-of-age, fiction, historic-fiction, social_issues

I am not going to lie, this book took some getting used to. What it reminded me of is a great bit ball of string, all knotted up, and trying to get it all into one smooth string, you have to follow the knots and work them slowly, one by one.

Glow begins with the story of Mia and Ella - Mia being the teenage mother of Ella, but Ella believing her grandmother is really her mother. There is racial tensions, being as this is set in Georgia in the mid-40's, and the switching back and forth between pe...more

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Feb 27, 2013 Jaime rated it 5 of 5 stars

I won this in a Goodreads giveaway

This was a book rich with language, history and emotion. I'm not a person who normally reads historical fiction, but I am so glad I got this one. There were weaves within weaves within a family tree: white, black, native; sexual attractions (though nothing explicit); racism and love; religion and magic.

Ella is a young girl in 1941 who is sent away by her mother (who she thinks is her sister) to save her. What TUccelli does is explain Ella's history, how she came...more

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Mar 09, 2012 Anjana rated it 4 of 5 stars

Lately all I've been reading are YA books and it was awesome to read an excellent work of literature for a change. In school, history class was story time . It was all a story to me but really, all that stuff we've read about, they really happened. The good, yes, but also the bad. Hitler, Racism, Inequality and Discrimination (of any kind) - they're all real. Sometimes I read so much that I forget that fiction has some truth in it. Cruelty is real. At least as much as the good stuff is.

When I s...more

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Mar 15, 2012 LORI CASWELL rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-2012

This story spans the years 1836 to 1941 following the female descendants of Solomon Bounds.

Amelia McGee, a young woman of Cherokee and Scotch-Irish descent, is an outspoken pamphleteer for the NAACP and when her home was vandalized in the middle of the night she decides to put her eleven year old daughter, Ella, alone on a bus home to Georgia from Washington, D.C. But when the local bus is out of commission Ella is left walking the last part of her journey. She is preyed on by two drifters and i...more This story spans the years 1836 to 1941 following the female descendants of Solomon Bounds.

Amelia McGee, a young woman of Cherokee and Scotch-Irish descent, is an outspoken pamphleteer for the NAACP and when her home was vandalized in the middle of the night she decides to put her eleven year old daughter, Ella, alone on a bus home to Georgia from Washington, D.C. But when the local bus is out of commission Ella is left walking the last part of her journey. She is preyed on by two drifters and is left for dead on the side of the road with just her dog.

Ella is found by Willa Mae Cotton, a former slave and Mary-Mary Freeborn. They take her back to their cabin to nurse her back to health. While there she learns the secrets of her lineage, she is the youngest of Solomon Bounds kin.

Dollycas’s Thoughts
This is a poignant narrative of an important time in history. In 2012 we are still talking about race, it is still a hot button issue even as we have the first president of mixed race.

The author takes us on a journey through Solomon Bounds family tree and each branch and leaf gets to tell us their part of the story. White, African-American, Native American, even mixed together, they all have their own voice in this family. Their words have a lyrical quality that makes the story real and engaging.

It is a story full of history and local customs of the Northeast Georgia. The settings of the mountains and forests surrounding the story are described lovingly, as is the weather endured, the heat, the winds, and the rain.

The theme throughout is love, a mother’s love for her child, the lengths we go to to maintain that relationship as well the other relationships in our lives, even relationships that society would deem forbidden. The women in this adventure are very strong and continue to grow throughout their story.

Again, I am amazed that this is a debut novel for this author. She is definitely an author to watch.

This is a beautifully composed novel spanning over 100 years, the readers will definitely see and feel the “Glow”.(less)

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Apr 04, 2013 Brandy rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2013, first-reads-giveaways, books-i-own

*I received a copy of this book via Goodreads giveaways - thank you!*

I'm not entirely certain how I feel about this book. The writing was beautiful, absolutely incredible, and the idea of weaving together multiple generations of women's stories is always a good one. However, the similarities of the women often left me confused as to who I was reading about and where exactly in the timeline I was. I was incredibly grateful for the family tree in the front of the book, since I had to refer to it m...more

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Jul 25, 2012 Rene Spector rated it 3 of 5 stars

I was so excited about this book after this on Page 8: "Lovelady had been with her all these years; she was certain of it. Obviously not in the flesh, not even in the spirit, but in the way your hand feels after the one you love lets it drop". I love that, I think its wonderfully profound.

But really, it didn't live up to my hyper expectation. It is a good book, the story is layered and deep, the characters are beautiful, the historical facts are detailed and appear to be accurate...but I had a...more

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May 07, 2012 Jennifer rated it 5 of 5 stars

This was so good! Kind of Roots-esque in content and how it covers the lives of many people throughout different periods in history (though I haven't seen Roots since 6th grade). My only complaint is that it felt like it ended rather abruptly -- I would have loved another chapter or two to wrap things up a bit more.

To be honest, I'm a bit wary of books like this -- chronicling the lives of people of color, but having been written by a caucasian. I've been avoiding that one book that was popular...more This was so good! Kind of Roots-esque in content and how it covers the lives of many people throughout different periods in history (though I haven't seen Roots since 6th grade). My only complaint is that it felt like it ended rather abruptly -- I would have loved another chapter or two to wrap things up a bit more.

To be honest, I'm a bit wary of books like this -- chronicling the lives of people of color, but having been written by a caucasian. I've been avoiding that one book that was popular recently (got made into a movie too, can't think of the name though) for this very reason, in addition to the message seeming to be rather tainted by a privileged point of view...then there was a law suit brought up against the author for stealing the story of her former housekeeper or some-such with no credit given.... That author seemed like a real piece of work.

In contrast, this book, Glow, felt so authentic that I didn't realize that the author was caucasian until I looked at her author page. Granted this time in history has not been a study of mine, and I'm caucasian, so I could very well be mistaken. I would venture to guess that Ms. Tuccelli did her research and characters justice. I felt like I learned a lot, and my heart broke a million times over the atrocities the protagonists had to face.

It really got me thinking too. For instance, the only first-hand stories of WWII I've heard my entire life were from the mouth of my patriotic father who signed up to fight Hitler in the year leading up to Pearl Harbor. Seeing a completely different (and completely valid) point of view in the very first chapter -- wow. Very powerful.

I'd like to add a trigger warning for survivors -- there are a couple of instances where sexual assault is imminent. However it does not get graphic, and thankfully our heroines do not suffer completed assaults. I felt the author treated the subject with respect, tastefulness, and dignity. So many times authors seem to revel in rape -- almost as if they have a fetish for it, or they use it for shock value. I knew Ms. Tuccelli would be different by the time I finished reading the e-book sample, and I thank her for being so thoughtful and respectful.(less)

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May 05, 2012 Cecily rated it 5 of 5 stars

This novel was much more than I expected from the dust jacket description. What could have been an interesting read as an abduction mystery and tale of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1940s turned into much more. It became a multigenerational tale of mixed-race communities and relationships over a century in Georgia told through the eyes of several characters, free and enslaved.

I feel it is often easy to make characters that are slaves more caricature than human being. The characters in this b...more

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Mar 16, 2012 Christina (A Reader of Fictions) rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: finishedreviewcopy

Enter to win a copy of Glow at my blog until 3/25: http://readeroffictions.blogspot.com/... No follow necessary to enter.

Ordinarily, I write my own summaries of books, but try as I might, I could not manage to sum Glow up in a paragraph. This novel, though not especially long, is dense and complex. There hardly is a plot, but a whole lot happens. Nothing is stated explicitly; it's left to the reader to suss out the meaning.

Glow did not especially grab me, but, despite that, I can still appreciat...more Enter to win a copy of Glow at my blog until 3/25: http://readeroffictions.blogspot.com/... No follow necessary to enter.

Ordinarily, I write my own summaries of books, but try as I might, I could not manage to sum Glow up in a paragraph. This novel, though not especially long, is dense and complex. There hardly is a plot, but a whole lot happens. Nothing is stated explicitly; it's left to the reader to suss out the meaning.

Glow did not especially grab me, but, despite that, I can still appreciate the artistry of the book. Jessica Maria Tuccelli displays evident talent both in the unique construction of a narrative and in the writing of disparate characters.

Tuccelli tells the story using multiple points of view, a very effective narrative style, but a very dangerous one as well. Only authors talented enough to write easily distinguishable characters by voice alone can pull it off. Tuccelli does so with ease. Each of the assortment of characters that narrate their perspective have very particular methods of speaking that clearly distinguish them. Most all of them speak in their own particular dialect, all quite distinct even though they all live in the same small town. One character's brief section seems more like poetry than prose, and, though unclear, conveys perfectly the confusion and tragedy of a little girl's death.

In Glow, Tuccelli tackles a number of serious issues, most importantly that of racism. The characters in the story come from an array of backgrounds, but are mostly black and Indian (as in Native American). The story spans all the way from before the Civil War era to 1941, from the era of slavery to the fight for civil rights.

When I first started reading Glow, I tried to read it like I do most books, quickly, devouring. This was, I realized later, a mistake. By reading so fast, I became confused about some of the action and the relationships between moments. When I began reading more slowly, giving myself more time to mull over what was going on and to really savor Tuccelli's talent, my joy of the book most certainly increased.

If you like beautifully-written historical fiction that will really make you think, try Glow.(less)

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Apr 23, 2013 Literary rated it 3 of 5 stars

Mandy's Review:

On the front of the cover there's a blurb that states, "Fans of The Help, this one's for you." (Ladies' Home Journal) I loved The Help, and I enjoy novels written during that time period, so I thought I'd give this one a try. Although the premise intrigued me, I quickly became confused by this book. Perhaps I'm just simple-minded, but let me begin with the characters and then I'll get into why I became confused.

Ella's put onto a train in Washington, D.C. by her mother (whom Ella t...more Mandy's Review:

On the front of the cover there's a blurb that states, "Fans of The Help, this one's for you." (Ladies' Home Journal) I loved The Help, and I enjoy novels written during that time period, so I thought I'd give this one a try. Although the premise intrigued me, I quickly became confused by this book. Perhaps I'm just simple-minded, but let me begin with the characters and then I'll get into why I became confused.

Ella's put onto a train in Washington, D.C. by her mother (whom Ella thinks is her sister) to escape the dangers there. When she arrives in Georgia, the person she was to meet at the station is not there to pick her up. After waiting for awhile, Ella decides to head to the closest village she sees. On her way she's accosted by several males and left for dead.

Amelia is often impulsive. She lives with her mother, father, and brother. They are part Cherokee and part Scotch-Irish. While they don't endure the many injustices of the African-Americans, they do have to be careful on who finds out about their heritage because being a half-breed is almost as bad as being African-American. Amelia is in love with an African-American boy, though, and she often gets into fights over her inability to see a person's color.

Willie Mae was born and raised on a slave plantation. After seeing her mother die, she's sold and taken off to a new plantation where she's treated much better. She becomes a maid to the lady of the manor, who is slightly deranged and speaks to little people that only she can see in puddles of water. Willie Mae falls in love with another slave-girl named Mary-Mary, but winds up marrying a slave-boy named Alger. Alger's aware of the bond between Willie Mae and Mary-Mary, but woos Willie Mae despite that ... and wins her love in the process.

All three of these ladies are tied together. From the first to the third, the reader is taken back into time by a generation each. If the book would have been written in this format, I think my confusion would have been decreased or cease to exist altogether, but it wasn't. The book starts off with present-day Amelia, then jumps to present-day Ella, then jumps back to Amelia, but to when she was a little girl (which started my confusion a little bit). After jumping back-and-forth for a while between Ella and young-Amelia, the reader's taken to young-Willie Mae's story. There were a few more voices introduced after this and some more back-and-forth between characters. By the time the book returned to Amelia and Ella, I had to flip back to the beginning to remind myself of who they were.

I did enjoy the three or four generations that were explored in this novel. Their stories were captivating and I lost myself in each one of them easily. I just wish there was less flip-flopping between stories and told from one generation to the next in a straight line. That may seem a bit simplistic to some of you, but I enjoy my stories to start at the beginning (in this instance with Riddle Young's story) and then proceed along to the present. I probably would've kept up with the characters easier.

Also, there were times when I forgot what race the characters were. The Bounds' are white slave owners, but in future generations they're African-American. I often forgot Amelia was Cherokee and Scotch-Irish because the way she and her family talked reminded me of older African-Americans. Some of the dialect used in this novel made me stop and think about what I was reading. For example, "marse" was used instead of "master" or "masta" (i.e. Marse Tom). The dialect did lend an authenticity to the time period so I cannot complain about it, but it did make me pause several times until I understood what they were trying to say.

Overall, while I did have a few complaints, I rather enjoyed this book. I don't know that I enjoyed it more than The Help, but it is a novel I would cautiously recommend to readers who are a fan of generational period literature.

*A paperback copy was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.(less)

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May 08, 2013 Thien-Kim rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It takes skill to write a novel that weaves together ghosts, the Civil Rights Movement, slavery, and a lost child. In her debut novel Glow, Jessica Maria Tuccelli whisks her readers from urban Washington, DC in the 1940s to the rural Georgia mountains. Eleven-year-old Ella McGee goes missing on a bus ride from DC to her mother’s Georgia hometown. Ella’s disappearance becomes the catalyst that stirs up memories of life in the mountains. Not only is there so much history and hurt in those mountain...more

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May 06, 2012 Susanne rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book is so much more than the historical events described on the jacket. The characters in the novel seem to grow with the landscape, and evolve into the inter-connectedness that is (thankfully) graphically depicted in a family tree in the beginning of the book. Glow is all the things you want in a novel - vivid writing, engaging story-lines, and complex and interesting characters. The author's focus on three main characters caught me on an emotional level as well, and I found that I though...more

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May 08, 2012 David Darugh rated it 5 of 5 stars

The author stayed at our Bed and Breakfast Inn (Beechwood Inn http://www.beechwoodinn.ws) while researching the book. She sent us a copy of the book when it was completed for us to read. My wife and I were thrilled with the book. It is filled with words that paint landscapes, or that vividly describe the characters and their relationships. The book shuttles through time and returns again to evoke the times of hard-life for the people of Southern Appalachia. I give this book a high rating - not e...more

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Dec 22, 2011 Jane rated it 5 of 5 stars

I loved, loved, loved this book! The prose was lush and vivid and the characters utterly believable. It transported me into another time(s), yet the sufferings and joys felt both modern and palpable. The writer uses several different narrators to tell the story and I found each voice to be engaging. So much so, that while I was excited to meet a new character I was always sad to let go of the one I'd just been travelling with. Although, the further in you read, the more you realize they're all t...more

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Apr 22, 2013 D shingy rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

My rating : 3.5
To me this story was mainly about Willie Mae, cause she was just too large for words and this book for me to consider other characters.
Even though the author with her style of telling stories through different characters per chapter gave each personality and character their weight and importance.
I believe I was in the worst reading mood this past week thus couldn't read this beautiful novel as well as it deserved.

●While going through the stories of those strong and some not s...more

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Apr 02, 2012 PopcornReads rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: jessica-maria-tuccelli, african-american-history, cross-cultural, family, fiction, ghosts, giveaway, general-fiction, glbt, history, historical-fiicton, lesbian, nature, relationships, romance, southern-fiction, suspense, native-american, cherokee, appalachian-mountains

Book Giveaway & Review: When the publisher’s rep approached me about reading and possibly reviewing Glow by Jessica Maria Tuccelli, all she had to tell me was that it took place in the Appalachian Mountains and I was hooked. Glow tells the story of at least four generations in an Georgia Appalachian Mountains family, spanning the years from 1836 through 1941. It’s a complex look at race relations within one family, whose members are of Native American, African American and Scots-Irish descen...more

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May 07, 2012 Marie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, war, southern, african-american

This is a tough book to review. I found the writing to be absolutely exquisite. At first, I thought this would be a four- or five-star book for sure. The story starts with Ella McGee, daughter of NAACP activist Amelia McGee, who is put on a bus down south to Georgia in 1941. Unfortunately, the bus breaks down and she is left stranded--and soon beat up by two strangers--on the side of the road. She's rescued by former slave Willie Mae Cotton and her partner, Mary-Mary Freeborn. Starts on an intri...more

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Mar 11, 2013 Betty rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

When I opened Glow, I was delighted to see the family tree at the very beginning. I adore genealogy and tracing the generations back and forth.

Ella McGee was born in 1930, and lived in Washington, DC. Her father is black, her mother a mixture of Cherokee and Scotch-Irish. At age 11, her mother, an activist, sent her back home on a bus to a small town in the Georgia mountains.

Ella disappeared. There comes a magical meeting with Willie Mae and Mary-Mary who find her. Are they ghosts? I don't thi...more

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Jun 25, 2012 Karen Ratkowski marked it as to-read

Loved it! Another new author that I will be following and looking forward to reading more books from. Beautiful, descriptive language - you can close your eyes and feel that forest...........

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May 01, 2013 Beth rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, historical

As a piece of literary fiction, Glow intrigued me for many reasons. First, the flowing conversation allowed me to stay engaged right there with the story:

Mia had tried again, treading gingerly, not wanting to spoil the beauty of her daughter, not wanting to seed ugliness in her head.
They won't let folks with brown faces work there. Only pink faces like them. White folks, she conceded.
Not even you?
Especially not me.
Why not?
Because some folks don't know any better; they weren't taught to do the ri...more

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Apr 05, 2012 Wendy Dingwall added it

I thought the writing was excellent and the author was adept at putting me in the scenes, though I did get confused when jumping into different heads and time periods, and some names seemed similar to others. Fortunately, I was able to continually refer to the family tree at the beginning of the book to see who and how the characters were related.

This will most likely make the rounds of the book clubs as it deals with racial issues. I found the stories rather depressing, but realistic in showing...more

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About Jessica Maria Tuccelli

GLOW is Jessica Maria Tuccelli's debut novel and a 2012 Okra Pick by Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance, its highest honor. A graduate of MIT with a degree in Cultural Anthropology, Tuccelli divides her time between New York City and Rome.

Check out the new novel -- GLOW:
http://jessicamariatuccelli.com/

Invite Jessica and GLOW to your book club:
http://jessicamariatuccelli.com/bookclub.html

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Quotes from Glow

“I still loved Granny. It flowed out of my chest. With Granny gone, where would my love go?” — 8 people liked it

“The word 'impossible' ain’t in my dictionary.” — 8 people liked it

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