“A wonderful, jazzy, exciting read.”
–Nikki Giovanni, author of Acolytes
Broke and burned-out from grad school, Shay Di... read full description
–Nikki Giovanni, author of Acolytes
Broke and burned-out from grad school, Shay Di... read full description
reviews
Oct 20, 2011
Anita
rated it: 
Excerpt from my COLORADO SPRINGS GAZETTE column:
Carleen Brice’s “Orange Mint and Honey” is a gem. “Orange Mint and Honey” tells the story of Shay Dixon, a broke and broken-down graduate student in Iowa City. The book begins with Shay becoming so depressed, she sees a vision of deceased blues singer Nina Simone. In the vision, Simone tells Shay to go home.
Home for Shay is a tricky place. Shay grew up in Denver with an absentee father and an alcoholic mother. While Shay’s More...
Carleen Brice’s “Orange Mint and Honey” is a gem. “Orange Mint and Honey” tells the story of Shay Dixon, a broke and broken-down graduate student in Iowa City. The book begins with Shay becoming so depressed, she sees a vision of deceased blues singer Nina Simone. In the vision, Simone tells Shay to go home.
Home for Shay is a tricky place. Shay grew up in Denver with an absentee father and an alcoholic mother. While Shay’s More...
Jan 28, 2011
Michelle
rated it:
This book was a very interesting, compelling read. It has been a few years since I read it and I remembered all of the details when it was prompted by a brief glimpse of a commercial for a lifetime movie crafted from the book.
I found Shay to be deeply troubled but bright and interesting.
I was interested in getting to know her and the other charachters in this book.
While I understand that her mother was negligent, one thing I thought was universal to most wom More...
I found Shay to be deeply troubled but bright and interesting.
I was interested in getting to know her and the other charachters in this book.
While I understand that her mother was negligent, one thing I thought was universal to most wom More...
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Aug 04, 2010
Hattie
rated it: 
"I closed my eyes and inhaled. The mint smelled like a just-sliced orange, but not as strong."
Carleen Brice has written a wonderful novel about a mother and daughter in Denver, Colorado. Shay, the daughter, comes from Iowa to Denver, Colorado where her mother lives with her baby girl, Sunny. Sunny is Shay's half sister. Shay's childhood with her mother was very difficult. Shay's mother during those years was an alcoholic. After coming home again, Shay finds a changed woman. More...
Carleen Brice has written a wonderful novel about a mother and daughter in Denver, Colorado. Shay, the daughter, comes from Iowa to Denver, Colorado where her mother lives with her baby girl, Sunny. Sunny is Shay's half sister. Shay's childhood with her mother was very difficult. Shay's mother during those years was an alcoholic. After coming home again, Shay finds a changed woman. More...
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Feb 28, 2010
Precious
rated it:
I have just finished reading this book and in fact stayed up all night reading. Orange Mint and Honey is well-written and Brice has a really original, engaging voice. I found Nona far, far more sympathetic than Shay. Obviously Shay had reason to feel angry and let down but I was waiting for the moment when she'd conclude "yes, my life is screwed up thanks to my childhood, now what am *I* going to do now to sort my life out?" Instead she was whiny, extremely immature for a 25-year-old
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Jan 10, 2010
Iris
rated it: 
In Orange Mint and Honey, Shay Dixon moves back home when she burns out at graduate school. She struggles to reconcile with her mom, a recovered alcoholic, and with her own feelings of anger and inadequacy. I enjoyed the insights into the struggles Shay faced as a young, black woman. I also enjoyed the references to Denver landmarks since I grew up nearby. However, Shay does not always make wise choices nor does she have the right framework for making good choices. Although the book recogni
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Jun 10, 2009
Nardsbaby
rated it:
Morning Glories
LaShay Dixon is literally at wits end. Broke, burned out with school and struggling to get her thesis done, her advisor demands that she take a break. With no family in Iowa to turn to, Nina Simone, the dead blues singer, sends her home to Denver, to face the chaos that she left smoldering years ago.
Nona Dixon, Shay's mother, is an alcoholic. Though she's been sober four years now and is an excellent mother to her three-year-old daughter, Sunny, Shay can't More...
LaShay Dixon is literally at wits end. Broke, burned out with school and struggling to get her thesis done, her advisor demands that she take a break. With no family in Iowa to turn to, Nina Simone, the dead blues singer, sends her home to Denver, to face the chaos that she left smoldering years ago.
Nona Dixon, Shay's mother, is an alcoholic. Though she's been sober four years now and is an excellent mother to her three-year-old daughter, Sunny, Shay can't More...
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Feb 18, 2012
Kimberly
rated it:
There are so many things I loved about this book--for starters, I completely identified with LaShay, the main character. She is an angry twenty-five year old because her mother is an alcoholic, and that liquor destroyed her childhood and relationship with her mom. Shay was in college and decided to take a semester off from school to go back home and try and rebuild something with her mother, and new baby sister, Sunny. Shay not only found her mother to be "changed" but alcohol free.
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Jul 12, 2011
Jen
rated it:
"I should have knows things were getting bad when Nina Simone showed up." That's the engaging first sentence of Orange Mint and Honey, an engrossing read that opens with the protagonist, a 25-year-old burned out grad student named Shay, having a vision from her idol that tells her to go home to Denver. There she moves back in with Nona, her now-sober mother who was drunk and negligent during Shay's childhood ... and who has a young child from a man she met in AA.
Shay has a More...
Shay has a More...
Feb 22, 2010
Nakia
rated it:
I really enjoyed this book, mainly because some of the issues presented throughout it's pages, really hit home. Someone VERY close to me dealt with a similar upbringing as the main character, Shay, so it was hard not to cry during certain parts of the book, when she aganized over her pain and chose not to forgive her mother. I think that the author handled the mother-daughter relationship superbly, and I give her two thumbs up on accurately introducing the audience to how children are affected b
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Aug 27, 2009
Alisa
rated it:
Someone went to a lot of trouble with the title and the cover to make this seem like a 'nice' book--which is too bad, because I avoid reading nice books.
There is a redemptive aspect to the ending, but it starts out on a real downer, and the voice is snappy. I know that if my mother was a useless alcoholic who forced me to raise myself while cleaning up her vomit and dodging her men, nothing, NOTHING, would make me more insanely furious than her getting her act together and becoming " More...
There is a redemptive aspect to the ending, but it starts out on a real downer, and the voice is snappy. I know that if my mother was a useless alcoholic who forced me to raise myself while cleaning up her vomit and dodging her men, nothing, NOTHING, would make me more insanely furious than her getting her act together and becoming " More...
Mar 23, 2010
Jackie
rated it:
I saw this movie on teevee and wanted to read the book. One, I need to know and read more African American authors and two, so many of my African American students want stories that feature African American characters. The story is about Shay, a burned-out grad student, who must come home for a break to the house of her mother, Nona. When Shay was a child, Nona was a horrible alcoholic who often left her and just was not there for her. Shay buried herself in school and became a star student,
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Jan 13, 2010
Sierra
rated it:
I kind of liked this book. Actually, I liked more about it than I disliked. The story is about Shay Dixon, a burnt out grad student who goes to stay with her recovering alcoholic mother for a break. She goes because Nina Simone (a dead jazz singer) tells her to. I didn't really connect with the Nina Simone thing. However, I really liked the mother-daughter story that's at the core of the novel. Their relationship and Shay's healing and evolution kept me reading. I didn't like the end. It felt lo
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Jul 09, 2010
Leslie
rated it:
I really enjoyed this book, I think, because of the music referenced throughout the book. The majority of the artists listed are my favorites and I think that's why the book was so relatable to me. Music stems from such an emotional place, that it helped me "feel" what Shay was feeling as song lyrics were mentioned.
I also liked how the author talked about how Black people acknowledge each other by "speaking" whether we know each other or not. As Carleen stated, i More...
I also liked how the author talked about how Black people acknowledge each other by "speaking" whether we know each other or not. As Carleen stated, i More...
Apr 25, 2011
Karen
rated it:
This is a very readable book, with a storyline about personal growth, getting past hurt-letting go-accepting you can't change the past and learning to see things differently.
I love the opening of the book: guidance comes from an adored, but dead blues singer and willing went along with Shay's premise for finding herself.
Clearly the author has knowledge of recovery programs, she hits fine details about AA and ALANON without being over the top. Her characters are very real, More...
I love the opening of the book: guidance comes from an adored, but dead blues singer and willing went along with Shay's premise for finding herself.
Clearly the author has knowledge of recovery programs, she hits fine details about AA and ALANON without being over the top. Her characters are very real, More...
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Aug 12, 2008
Gail
rated it:
Kudos to Ms. Brice for pulling on her hip boots and wading through the morass of destructive anger and painful recovery that is the mother/daughter, victim/survivor alcoholic angst ridden basis for this story.
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Jun 10, 2009
Katie
rated it:
Overall I really enjoyed this book. The descriptions of the garden and the symbolism there was by far my favorite part of the story. The only reason I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 was that I had trouble connecting with the main character. I thought Shay seemed whiny, overdramatic, disrespectful and just really bratty toward everyone. I understood the reasons for her self-pity. It just got old after a few chapters.
The beginning drew me in to the story and I quickly started to like the More...
The beginning drew me in to the story and I quickly started to like the More...
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Jan 05, 2012
Nikki
rated it:
I read this book several years ago and although parts of it were painful, I thought it was very well written. As a child of an alcoholic, I could relate to some of the feeling of abandonment and neglect that was felt by the main character. I was never able to deal with my alcoholic parent as an adult in recovery but luckily I had one good parent that was and is a constant.
I watched the made for TV movie for this book, Sins of the Mother, staring Jill Scott as the recovering alcoholic. More...
I watched the made for TV movie for this book, Sins of the Mother, staring Jill Scott as the recovering alcoholic. More...
Jul 16, 2009
Sadie
rated it:
I really enjoyed this book. As as the adult child of an alcoholic I could relate the Shae's frustrations and resentment toward her mother. This novel rang true it wasn't just a good read. I was also fun to read novel from a local artist. I knew the places she was talking about Additionally I liked the way Brice blended in the music she loves into this novel. If I learned anything from this book it is that we all fall down and sometimes "failing or falling" is the best thing that c
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Jan 29, 2012
Revae
rated it:
LaShay (Shay, as she prefers to be called) is a grad student who has reached her breaking point. She is broke and at her wit's end with school. Nina Simone appears to her and convinces her that it's time to return home to Denver, CO with her now mother, Nona and little sister, Sunny. The problem is that Nona is no longer drinking and running around with men. She has gotten sober and is attempting to make a good life for her three year old daughter, Sunny. Not only does Shay need to recharge to m
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Feb 20, 2010
Donura
rated it:
RATING: 5 out of 5
Why did I wait so long to read this book? I was lucky enough to snag a hard cover copy back in September of 2009 but somehow kept putting it further down on the pile. Must have truly been overrun with ARC’s. Finally, I decided I must devour it before the “made for TV” movie airs which just happens to be this Sunday on Lifetime. I never like to see the movie before I read the book. This was a simple feat because once I picked up the book; I could not put More...
Why did I wait so long to read this book? I was lucky enough to snag a hard cover copy back in September of 2009 but somehow kept putting it further down on the pile. Must have truly been overrun with ARC’s. Finally, I decided I must devour it before the “made for TV” movie airs which just happens to be this Sunday on Lifetime. I never like to see the movie before I read the book. This was a simple feat because once I picked up the book; I could not put More...
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Nov 05, 2008
Shay Dixon is in grad school studying epidemiology in Iowa when an apparition of Nina Simone gives her some startling advice- "Go home." And so our heroine must steel herself for the epic return to her alcoholic mother- only to find her mother is, maddeningly, living in the present- in an orderly home, with a three year old daughter, a white AA sponsor, and sticky notes with cheery self help sayings festooning her walls. And a garden. This boggles Shay's perceptions and rankles ever
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Nov 06, 2008
Carolyn
rated it:
Orange Mint and Honey is a gripping story of a young woman who finds herself in the midst of an identity crisis that has her literally pulling out her hair and seeing Nina Simone “standing in front of her bedroom window.” At the urging of the High Priestess of Soul, LaShay takes a leave of absence from her graduate studies at the University of Iowa and goes home to her recovering alcoholic mother in Denver. From that point on, Brice entangles her readers in a universal tale of a daughter comin
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Mar 16, 2011
Uzzie
rated it:
Bravo! This is a feel good book if I ever read one! There is a great deal of pain and joy in the relationship Shay and Nona shares. Brice does a great job of not turning it into some fairytale mother-daughter relationship while also conveying the possibility of healing in the face of life's most destructive entity, one's self. I saw the movie first and loved it, so I knew the book would be well done--it was! I think Brice does a good job of developing characters and plot evenly throughout.
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Feb 09, 2010
Lara
rated it:
I really enjoyed this book! I thought the character of Shay was realistically portrayed and I found a lot to connect with. We all have wounds from our upbringing. Her journey to emotional healing was engaging and I found myself wanting to race through the book to see how it ended. I tried hard to savor the trip though...Carleen Brice's writing is so enjoyable that I didn't want to lose any of it by reading too quickly!
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Mar 25, 2009
Jackie
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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
To view it, click here
Apr 09, 2009
H.A.
rated it:
As of 4/8/09, I've finished the book once (my regular reading) and now I'm going back and doing a deeper reading. It's well worth the time! A touching story that's real and raw, uplifting and sometimes sad, but ultimately empowering. How women can rise up and make a better life for themselves no matter what their circumstances. This is also a profound story about mothers and daughters, and the way a difficult relationship can twist your life, or enrich it. Highly recommended, and hopefully I'll
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Mar 01, 2010
After seeing part of the movie (Sins of the Mother) I checked out the book thinking that the church scene would make a great dramatic duo interp piece for next year's debaters. Once I got the book and started getting into it, I started to appreciate the main character's struggles. It's a fantastic story.
Jul 24, 2011
April
rated it:
I heard of this story but as a movie on LMN. The book stayed pretty close to the movie of course the book has more details. The story was about a young woman who needs to take a break from college for at least a semester per request of one of her advisors. With no place to go she has turned to her mother who during Shay's childhood was an alcoholic and abandoned her many times. Leaving her home alone while she hooked up with a man or got drunk while Shay is home. Her and her mother overcome
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Feb 01, 2010
Karyn
rated it:
I absolutely loved this book. I read it in preparation for the upcoming movie "Sins of the Mother" which stars singer/actress Jill Scott (the movie airs on Lifetime on February 21, 2010).
The story is one of redemption - forgiveness of self and recognition of personal shortcomings.
The story is one of redemption - forgiveness of self and recognition of personal shortcomings.
Feb 09, 2010
Stephanie
rated it:
This reminded me in a really wonderful way of a Sarah Dessen novel, but written for adults rather than teens. I loved the characters and the complexity of their relationships (especially the relationship between Shay and Nona, but also all the other entanglements in the novel, every single one of them three-dimensional and believable), and I really cared about what would happen to all the characters. I ate it up all in one day and can't wait to read more by Carleen Brice.
