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57th out of 73 books
—
967 voters
What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day (Idlewild #1)
by
Pearl Cleage
In a remarkable debut novel that sizzles with sensuality, crackles with life-affirming energy and moves the reader to laughter and tears, author Pearl Cleage creates a world rich in character, human drama, and deep, compassionate understanding. After a decade of luxe living in Atlanta, Ava Johnson has returned to tiny Idlewild, Michigan -- her fabulous career and power pla...more
Paperback, 244 pages
Published
November 1st 1998
by Harper Perennial
(first published 1997)
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21st out of 112 books
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45 voters
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What looks like beautiful is an ordinary novel,
I was excited when I started reading this book. The author has a good voice, a beautiful voice, an honest voice. But that is all it is. The main character is well defined, strong and believable. The beginning is exciting and new. But then the plot. oh, the plot. so thin, so predictable, so boring. I knew from the first clue how the book would end. The other characters are one dimensional, either all good or all bad and did I say the plot was thin. o...more
I was excited when I started reading this book. The author has a good voice, a beautiful voice, an honest voice. But that is all it is. The main character is well defined, strong and believable. The beginning is exciting and new. But then the plot. oh, the plot. so thin, so predictable, so boring. I knew from the first clue how the book would end. The other characters are one dimensional, either all good or all bad and did I say the plot was thin. o...more
A quick, easy read about a tough, but somewhat dated subject: the main character Ava Johnson stops by her small hometown in Michigan after many fun-and-sex-filled years in Atlanta. She is HIV-positive and on her way to a new life in San Francisco. While spending time with her sister, she gets caught up in a local situation and ends up falling in love. This book wasn't terribly deep, but I have to imagine that it did a great job at portraying the conflicted, angry (and disappointed) thoughts of a...more
Ava Johnson is almost the exact opposite of me. Seriously, we have nothing in common--but I was drawn to her character in just the first page of the novel, when she discloses her big secret. It's also nothing I can relate to, but intriguing nonetheless. She has undergone change since escaping the tiny Idlewild community, but comes back to discover that maybe change isn't always good. Her growth and progress through the novel were captivating, and Cleage really sucks you in to feeling as though...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
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Normally I run like crazy from an 'Oprah's book club' selection - finding them self-righteous and/or overwritten. What a nice surprise to discover that this book was neither!
I found myself emotionally engaged by Ava's situation and relationships and didn't tire of the narrative at all.
I guess I've learned a little about my own particular literary prejudices by enjoying this book much more than I expected!
I found myself emotionally engaged by Ava's situation and relationships and didn't tire of the narrative at all.
I guess I've learned a little about my own particular literary prejudices by enjoying this book much more than I expected!
I picked this book up at a thrift store just because I liked the title. I almost quit reading after the first two pages, but I am glad I stuck with it. The plot is flat at times and it can be raw to the point of vulgarity, but hope shines through it all. This is definitely not the sort of book I normally read, but I liked it because of that.
Quotes I enjoyed:
"Sometimes you meet yourself on the road before you have a chance to learn the appropriate greeting. Faced with your own possibilities, th...more
Quotes I enjoyed:
"Sometimes you meet yourself on the road before you have a chance to learn the appropriate greeting. Faced with your own possibilities, th...more
Ava is spunky and speaks her mind and that’s appealing in a main character. As she tells her story she is not afraid to admit her shortcomings (she drinks too much, she slept with too many men) and I liked that about her. I also really liked her sister who brought a real warmth to the book. Her work with teen moms moved the story along nicely and provided a real nasty antagonist. Eddie was an okay character, but he was a little too good. He didn’t seem real.
I really liked that the main character...more
I really liked that the main character...more
Although I thought I would never read an Oprah book club pick, I ended up reading this due to a Twitter book club I joined that was started by Rae Lewis-Thornton. The book follows the main character as she heads to Idlewild, MI from Atlanta, GA. The protaganist is a woman who is HIV positive and was pretty much driven from Atlanta as her status became known and she had to pick up and leave to start a new life. While the story talks a little about her HIV status, this book touches on more of the...more
An African American woman from a small town, living in a big city discovers something that changes her life and the way she views it forever…she was told she is HIV positive. Ava is a successful business woman, running her own salon in Atlanta. Her life may have been a bit full of sex partners, but she is a good woman and a hardworking woman. She feels, when told she is HIV positive, that the men she has had sex with deserve to know. So she sends out letters telling them all and telling them tha...more
1 like · like · see review
Not sure about this one. Started off boring enough to make me fall sleep. I knew it being an Oprah book I wouldn't be all about it. The story clunked along with not much to go on. It was very predictable, even in a world I'm not part of. I knew on every turn what was going to happen. Then the end happened....what the hell kind of ending was that? I felt like it just stopped.
I don't like when the epilogues explain quickly what should have been explained in more chapters. That bugged me. All of t...more
I don't like when the epilogues explain quickly what should have been explained in more chapters. That bugged me. All of t...more
1 like · like · see review
Nov 27, 2012
Ficbot
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
2012,
general-fiction
This was a really great book! It had an easy, smooth writing style and sympathetic, engaging characters. The plot wasn't much to speak of---the main character goes home to spend the summer with her sister, and that's pretty much the whole thing---but the book goes to some interesting places and explores a culture and community I have no experience with, which is always nice.
I did find the love story a little too easy---Eddie and Ava fall in love a little too quickly and smoothly, and their resp...more
I did find the love story a little too easy---Eddie and Ava fall in love a little too quickly and smoothly, and their resp...more
When I picked this book up off the shelf, I had no idea it was an Oprah's Book Club book. I just liked the sound of the title and the look of the cover. However, it didn't take me long to see why Oprah chose it for her bookclub and to be totally absorbed in the story and anxious to see what happened. Pearl Cleage is a wonderful story teller and she manages to take some pretty heavy topics, convey a message of hope, and still make you laugh along the way. This was an incredibly fast read for me a...more
Amazingly powerful without superfluity. Straight from the hip and non-preachy; I love how this woman writes for her intended audience. I asked my teenage daughter to read the Sewing Circus' Statement of Purpose, and then the proceding 3 pages ( in my copy that's pg 157-161 ... month of August - first entry.) I explained to my daughter that because she's a white girl in a nice neighbourhood someone (me) might not think to share with her those rudimentary, and brutally honest social directives. Pe...more
Being a bit burned out by my normal non-fiction/self help type of books, I picked this one up hoping to "escape" into the unreal lives of others.
Fictional as it may be, the situations & stories of the main characters, Ava & Joyce, their lives & those in it, are very real to many people.
Through this book I experienced the joys & sorrows of lives so different than my own. The author wrote in such a way, the characters became "real".
The author drew me in with the interesting &...more
Fictional as it may be, the situations & stories of the main characters, Ava & Joyce, their lives & those in it, are very real to many people.
Through this book I experienced the joys & sorrows of lives so different than my own. The author wrote in such a way, the characters became "real".
The author drew me in with the interesting &...more
Great book about life is what you make of it. When trying to change crack-heads into upstanding persons, every day seems harder and harder.
Knowing that she has HIV her older sister and a concerned friend change Ava's life more than she would ever expected.
Joyce the older sister is completely compassionate to others well being. The reverends wife Gerry Anderson creates quite a stir in all that is good. Determination gets Joyce to continue in her mission to better this town.
Along the way Av...more
Knowing that she has HIV her older sister and a concerned friend change Ava's life more than she would ever expected.
Joyce the older sister is completely compassionate to others well being. The reverends wife Gerry Anderson creates quite a stir in all that is good. Determination gets Joyce to continue in her mission to better this town.
Along the way Av...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
This was a very interesting look into life in a declining African American community plagued with violence, drugs, and disease. I don't think I have ever read anything about the African American experience from the perspective of an African American. Very enlightening.
It was written like a journal/diary, and I think that may be part of the reason I felt the characters were poorly developed - but I just had to keep reminding myself it was a journal and so not omniscient. I do with the Author had...more
It was written like a journal/diary, and I think that may be part of the reason I felt the characters were poorly developed - but I just had to keep reminding myself it was a journal and so not omniscient. I do with the Author had...more
Loved this book. The characters were well-developed and likeable (with a few exceptions). I enjoyed reading a story set in northern Michigan; the author was very accurate in her descriptions (with the exception of saying Interlochen has a pool, which it doesn't; there are lakes). It was interesting to see life through the eyes of an HIV-positive African American woman... her voice was beautiful. I thought Eddie was a little too good to be true, and the minister's wife was a little too wicked to...more
For me, this book was just a book to read to keep me entertained, i didn't plan on really getting anything from it. However, while reading, i started to think about how amazing it was that Pearl Cleage could write and entertaining and heartfelt novel about things that are so personal. The best part of the novel was that all the tragic things that happen in Idlewild and to Joyce, Ava, and Eddie in particular aren't things that we would normally associate with a small town. Cleage does a great job...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
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Ang finished, yay! Now I can write my review. This was a really quick and enjoyable read. Before I started this book, I thought there would be heavier subject matter since we know the main character (Ava) is living with HIV. Surprising to me though is how little focus this actually gets - which I thought turned out ok because we got to know the other main characters well. Now that I think about it, I felt like I got to know Joyce and Eddie a lot better than Ava. We learn all about Joyce's late h...more
It was a long, hot summer, and I was home from college and needed something to read. I had to go to the DMV and wasn't about to do it empty handed, so I needed something... anything. I found this book on the shelf in my parents' garage. It had an "O" on it, denoting that it was an Oprah book. I generally have a fairly strict No-Oprah-Books policy, but these were desperate times, people. I had to go to the DMV!!! Long story short - this book just did not tickle my fancy. I remember it being borin...more
This is not a book I would normally read. But I have to say it is well written, the characters are well-formed and it's engaging. The story is from a young woman who grew up in Idlewild, Michigan an idyllic town on the shores of the lake. It talks about how she couldn't wait to escape but when she faces challenges, she can't wait to get back there. She and her sister have their own share of challenges back in Idlewild.
For fiction, it hit on a lot of issues with today's youth and changing times....more
For fiction, it hit on a lot of issues with today's youth and changing times....more
This was the first book I read from the lists for "National Buy a Book by a Black Author and Give it to Somebody Not Black Month".
There is something to this idea: reading fiction geared towards AA folks, you encountered bits of culture that are assumed understood. Things like the hopelessness, joblessness and violence that plagues northern urban ghettos, what crackheads are like, the primacy of hair and how fraught with meaning it is, experience with social services, frustration with the lack o...more
There is something to this idea: reading fiction geared towards AA folks, you encountered bits of culture that are assumed understood. Things like the hopelessness, joblessness and violence that plagues northern urban ghettos, what crackheads are like, the primacy of hair and how fraught with meaning it is, experience with social services, frustration with the lack o...more
The best thing about this book is that the author has a terrific writing voice, and is able to flesh out a main character who is both sympathetic and interesting. In fact, the voice is so strong that it's pretty much what sustains the entire book through a paper thin and deeply predictable plot, two dimensional villains and a resolution that seems way too easy for the meaty issues that are raised by the book.
Anyway, I enjoyed it, but was sort of disappointed because it just seemed like there was...more
Anyway, I enjoyed it, but was sort of disappointed because it just seemed like there was...more
I chose this book because it looked like an easy, was on Oprah's book list (not a bad source), and had an usual format - this, the entire book is a series of daily diary entries over the course of one summer. It took me about 60 pages to really get into the book, but once I did, the characters were so intense I could not stop reading. I practically wanted to marry one character, push another over a bridge, and cry and laugh with others still. This book will take you on a roller coaster ride, but...more
I remember when the AIDS scare started. I was in H.S. I remember when we asked people how they got the virus as it that could mitigate the disease in some way. I think exploring these attitudes in this format is a wonderful idea. I think we can apply those lessions to religion (currently), as well as other places. A charming book. It is easy to read and moves rather quickly. The characters are well developed and the book is a whole story rather that the book being a prelude to a rant at the end....more
I picked this book because I liked the title and the cover. I had no idea what it was about. Had I known I probably wouldn't have picked it but I'm so glad I did. I read it rather quickly because I couldn't put it down. I loved the characters of Ava and her sister, Joyce. It made me wish there were more people like Joyce out there in the world. She had a huge heart and put everyone before herself. The overlying theme of this book is hope. Some of the characters were rather predictable but all in...more
I cannot lie; the cover art made me hesitate. But the text is MUCH better than it led me to believe. Struggling with HIV/AIDS, the narrator rebuilds her life and learns how to love and trust again. Incredibly well-written without a hint of self-pity, Cleage takes you inside the mind and chaotic life of a woman who chooses to live and give instead of running away and hiding. Also an excellent book to showcase issues within the black community such as the denial of AIDS, lack of gainful employment...more
In “What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day” Pearl Cleage creates this 1st person narrative to touch on critical topics in America and those that weigh heavy in the African-American community. Her writing style creates a strong bond between her characters and the reader. I was moved and felt a great connection to Ava, the main character, in her determination to flee the ignorant community in Atlanta because her positive HIV status and reclaim herself. This book has the many parts of a good read...more
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“If you don't annoy your big sister for no good reason from time to time, she thinks you don't love her anymore.”
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71 people liked it
“Sometimes you meet yourself on the road before you have a chance to learn the appropriate greeting. Faced with your own possibilities, the hard part is knowing a speech is not required. All you have to say is yes.”
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24 people liked it
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Apr 17, 2009 06:48am