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111th out of 219 books
—
377 voters
Sweetie
Friendship. Courage. Hope.
For shy, stuttering Melissa, the wild mountain girl named Sweetie is a symbol of pride and strength. But to many in their Appalachian town Sweetie is an outcast, a sinister influence, or worse. This poignant and haunting story takes readers deep inside the bittersweet heart of childhood loyalties.
A West Virginia native, Kat Magendie came home to
...morePaperback, 216 pages
Published
November 1st 2010
by Bell Bridge Books
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I loved this book. The author really makes you feel like you are seeing every little flower, and all things beautiful in the smoky mountains. This story is a wonderful story of friendship and I really loved this read!! I have never ready anything quite like it and I loved the two girls in this story!
Coming-of-age novels are certainly nothing new, but Sweetie is that and so much more. The book starts right off with an adult narrator (Lissa) recalling her first meeting with Sweetie. I immediately fell in love with the wild mountain girl and unrepentant outsider in the character of Sweetie. In spite of the gender difference, I also came to identify with, and grew to love, thirteen-year-old Lissa; so many of us felt awkward and unattractive at this, or some, early stage of life.
Lissa joins Swee...more
Lissa joins Swee...more
Twelve Year Old Shy, Stuttering, And Overweight Melissa Had Been Carted Around From State To State When Her Mom Got The Idea To Uproot Her Family On Any Little Whim. Her Dad Never Stood Up To Her, Took Teaching Jobs, And As Long As He Could Work On His Novel He Let Her Have Her Way. Melissa Met Sweetie When She Lost Fran; They All Thought Sweetie Was Crazy And Her Mom Was A Witch. Sweetie Goofed Around On The Rusted Monkey Bars Even Though They Were All Warned To Stay Off. Sweetie Caught Her Fin...more
I think I’ve just found another favorite author to add to my list. Sweetie, by Kathryn Magendie, introduced me to Appalachian mountains, the cruelty of small children, the misplaced kindness of adults, and the wonders of friendship spanning the years, all told in an absorbing voice with beautiful language that made the book impossible to put down.
Melissa, shy, overweight and stuttering, suffers from her mother’s dismissal, her father’s distraction, and her school-friends’ savage comments. But sh...more
Melissa, shy, overweight and stuttering, suffers from her mother’s dismissal, her father’s distraction, and her school-friends’ savage comments. But sh...more
Ugh, what can I say? I was excited to read "Sweetie" after reading all the great reviews on here, but I just didn't feel as drawn to the story as I thought I would. I never thought "Ooh! I can't wait to get home from work and read some more of my book!" That, and the ending sucked. Wish I could give
Set the the late 60s or early 70s in Western North Carolina, chubby, stuttering Melissa (Miss Lissa) and scarred up, secretive Sweetie are outcasts at school and become best friends. I like the comin...more
Set the the late 60s or early 70s in Western North Carolina, chubby, stuttering Melissa (Miss Lissa) and scarred up, secretive Sweetie are outcasts at school and become best friends. I like the comin...more
Five stars. FIVE STARS to this book. I'm out of breath from being totally blown away by this beautiful coming-of-age story. Parts of this book reminded me of an old favorite book, The Shepherd of the Hills by Harold Bell Wright. Kathryn Magendie has captured some magic in her descriptions of the Smoky Mountains and has created a character in Sweetie that will live on in my memory.
Sweetie is the story of two very different girls, friends thrown together through cruel acts at school - one strong a...more
Sweetie is the story of two very different girls, friends thrown together through cruel acts at school - one strong a...more
Sigh. I'm such a sucker for a friendship story. Especially if it's a women friendship story. Why? Because so many books of what's called "women fiction" most often than not feature broken friendships or a friendship where one of the women is a harpy and the other one is sooo perfect. So I tend to yearn for a good women friendship story. Was Sweetie a good one? No. It was an abso-friggin-lutely fantastic one!
First off, the writing in Sweetie was so beautiful. Her use of language was just tremendo...more
First off, the writing in Sweetie was so beautiful. Her use of language was just tremendo...more
I loved every minute of this story. A beautiful coming-of-age tale set in Appalachia in the 1970's, tells the story of Melissa and Sweetie; Shy, overweight Melissa, and brash, outspoken Sweetie, who become fast friends. It is a story of a summertime friendship, spent roaming the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina's Haywood County. Two friends who become "bound sisters" for life, each needing something from the other. Kathryn Magendie lives and works in the very same area where this story takes pl...more
Jan 12, 2011
Michelle
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommended to Michelle by:
Free Kindle ebook
The setting of this book resonates with me. In western North Carolina, on a mountain, two girls discover stories, nature, and themselves through folklore, mystique, and long summer days. Having explored various parts of 'wilderness' growing up, naming different rocks and parts of creeks, I could relate to the girls as they did the same, making maps to guide one another. The ending (I'm not saying what it is) left me wondering what actually happened, which sort of bugs me but I can think of a few...more
This is a moving, but not sappy, haunting story of friendship between shy, stuttering Melissa and Sweetie, a girl who is in an outcast and lives in the Appalachian mountains. Sweetie is a mysterious, and some say she is is sinister influence, and rumors around the town that Sweetie's mother is a witch. Melissa also feels like an outcast, especially at school where the other kids bully her. She befriends Sweetie and gets to know her, and soon the two become fast friends, spending their summer hav...more
Two mismatched girls in an Appalachian town bond. Melissa is chubby, shy and domesticated; Sweetie is a child of the forest, mysterious, ever-resourceful, uninhibited. The story is told from Melissa's point of view, so that the reader is drawn alongside Melissa into Sweetie's world. We too get mesmerized by Sweetie's dry blunt observations and a knowledge of the world that hints at darker experience. The dialogue is finely honed--Sweetie has pretty much got her own language. Magendie's naturalis...more
Shy, stuttering Melissa meets the wild Sweetie in school, and the two girls fast become friends. Sweetie's wild ways infuse Melissa with confidence, but not everyone is enchanted with Sweetie. Set in an Appalachian town in the 1970s, others see Sweetie as an outcast.
Magendie has written a beautiful novel of friendship that should appeal to readers of all ages. Melissa is the soul of reason and Sweetie is the wild wind from the mountain. Magendie takes the reader into their lives with her poetic...more
Magendie has written a beautiful novel of friendship that should appeal to readers of all ages. Melissa is the soul of reason and Sweetie is the wild wind from the mountain. Magendie takes the reader into their lives with her poetic...more
I loved this book. A beautiful story of friendship, pure and simple.
Two girls from differing backgrounds are brought together at school. Katherine Magendie shares with us a story of their bonding in a gentle, funny, sad and passionate way.
One girl, Melissa is brought up by an over-bearing mother and a scientific father.Everything he tries to teach her is brought down the the basics of science. The other, Sweetie lives in the mountains with a mother who is the subject of small town gossip.
Both...more
Two girls from differing backgrounds are brought together at school. Katherine Magendie shares with us a story of their bonding in a gentle, funny, sad and passionate way.
One girl, Melissa is brought up by an over-bearing mother and a scientific father.Everything he tries to teach her is brought down the the basics of science. The other, Sweetie lives in the mountains with a mother who is the subject of small town gossip.
Both...more
Twelve year old Melissa of North Carolina is a little podgy and wears glasses. She prefers to spend her days at home. She only had one friend at school until Sweetie joined the class. Sweetie is strange but intriguing to Melissa. She helps Melissa (whom she calls Miss Lissa) lose her stutter and seems to know all about herbal medicine. She thinks these are magical.
She lives in the woods with her mother and knows an old Indian man who lives nearby. He, like Sweetie, believes in the magic of the m...more
She lives in the woods with her mother and knows an old Indian man who lives nearby. He, like Sweetie, believes in the magic of the m...more
I love books that explore female friendships, regardless of the characters' ages - this book contained wonderful descriptions of a early teen relationship between two girls...I was ready to give the book 5 stars (I was loving it as much as Julie Cannon's "'Mater Biscuit" and "True Love and Homegrown Tomatoes" books, which explore the tribulations and triumphs of a teen girl) until the end....it just kind of ended. I found the writing in the last chapter confusing and I'm still not sure what happ...more
I would have given this a 5 , but the conclusion was too ambiguous for me. Melissa is a shy, overweight new girl in a town in NC; Sweetie is the wild, mountain child, caring for her sick mom in the mountains and according to the town either a witch or possessed by the devil as she runs through the woods and mountains. They become best friends over one summer much to the dismay of Melissa's mom who is pushy, shallow and living in a dysfunctional marriage. Their friendship is one of 2 opposites wh...more
Sweetie is not a book you can judge by its cover because 'Sweetie' is the name of a young girl in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina. The story feels like it is set in the last 60's or early 70's, and it is a coming-of-age tale between Melissa and her only friend Sweetie.
As a guy, I didn't mind the female perspective of the story, even though it dealt with some issues I never experienced and can never truly understand. I really liked the bond developed between the two girls and how eac...more
As a guy, I didn't mind the female perspective of the story, even though it dealt with some issues I never experienced and can never truly understand. I really liked the bond developed between the two girls and how eac...more
This is a great book it has so many of my favorites tied into one-Southern Fiction, magical realism, and coming of age. It is a story of friendship, family, loss and life.
The friendship between Sweetie and Melissa or as Sweetie calls her Miss Lissa is so beautiful 2 children from very different backgrounds become the best of friends and blood bound sisters. Sweetie is a mountain girl who believes the mountain ways and her and her mother are the talk of much gossip in town. Melissa’s family moves...more
The friendship between Sweetie and Melissa or as Sweetie calls her Miss Lissa is so beautiful 2 children from very different backgrounds become the best of friends and blood bound sisters. Sweetie is a mountain girl who believes the mountain ways and her and her mother are the talk of much gossip in town. Melissa’s family moves...more
This was an interesting coming of age story. Sweetie is a "mountain girl" and Melissa is a "town girl" and they become fast friends. They are opposites but that seems to work. Like most coming of age stories, there is conflict in the homelife of each of the girls, each very different, but conflict nonetheless. The story starts slowly, developing all the characters. This does not bother me, but the climax and end seem sudden and rushed by comparison... maybe this is deliberate to intensify what i...more
I usually adore most any novel set in the South. It's where I've lived my whole life and it's what I know, so I can relate to the setting and the characters. However, I didn't find this the case with Sweetie. Inherently, I could see the pictures the author was trying to paint of the characters and their families and experiences. I simply found it all a bit odd and unfinished, not to mention how annoying Melissa's parents were. I found myself wanting Melissa to run away with Sweetie and live in t...more
I usually adore most any novel set in the South. It's where I've lived my whole life and it's what I know, so I can relate to the setting and the characters. However, I didn't find this the case with Sweetie. Inherently, I could see the pictures the author was trying to paint of the characters and their families and experiences. I simply found it all a bit odd and unfinished, not to mention how annoying Melissa's parents were. I found myself wanting Melissa to run away with Sweetie and live in t...more
Though I'm not a North Carolina native, I flatter myself that I have "the feel" for the sights, sounds and scents of one of my favorite places. "Sweetie," set in the western hills, has it all. Further, the story is told through the experience of Melissa, a young girl who moves to the area and becomes Sweetie's friend. Melissa was incredibly relatable for me - the perpetual new kid in school with unusual parents.
I finished this book four days ago and have started on something different. Still, I...more
I finished this book four days ago and have started on something different. Still, I...more
Well, it's a high 4 star book or a low 5 star book. As mentioned earlier, the rich, more adult and complex writing in this novel was a breath of fresh air right off the bat, just because I'd been reading a lot of young adult novels recently. This is also a type of "coming of age" story, but told after the narrator is an adult, so through a little bit of a different lens than just a young teen telling her story while it's happening.
Basic plot: Young teen, Melissa, is somewhat of an outcast/made...more
Basic plot: Young teen, Melissa, is somewhat of an outcast/made...more
This has been in my e-book "stack" for quite a while, waiting to be read. I honestly wish I had read it sooner. Being a recent transplant to Maggie Valley in Haywood County (June 2010), I have found more information about my new home in two days of reading than I have in almost 2 years.
Story, characterization and dialogue are excellent and will hold your attention, leaving you wanting more when you reach the final page.
I heartily recommend Ms. Magendie's "Sweetie" to one and all, and look forwar...more
Story, characterization and dialogue are excellent and will hold your attention, leaving you wanting more when you reach the final page.
I heartily recommend Ms. Magendie's "Sweetie" to one and all, and look forwar...more
I just loved this coming of age story of two young girls from different walks of life that develop a friendship that will get them through a life changing summer. Sweetie and Melissa grow to depend upon one another through both of their strengths and weaknesses. In the opening of the book Melissa is a grown woman and she returns to the mountain town and finds herself recalling the special friendship that these girls had.
When Melissa was a young, overweight girl her family moved from town to town...more
When Melissa was a young, overweight girl her family moved from town to town...more
I couldn't help but think that this story was meant for preteens; it never really grabbed me. I was dissappointed with the ending as it left a lot of empty spaces for the reader to fill in. There was too much detail regarding Lissa's thoughts/feelings and not enough detail in the actual placement of time within the story. How old was she at the beginning? I didn't find the character of Lissa's father to be true as his mother died of a "Woman's Disease" - he was described as a scientific man - th...more
I wanted to like this book but I didn't. Gee, mountains and mountain people are weird and magical and connected to Native Americans who are also weird and magical and can cure anything by wishing for it and pulling up herbs. If you're lucky you'll get to visit their world. If you're luckier, they'll visit yours and then you'll know how much your world sucks. They don't die either; they disappear.
I did not understand this book. It took me much longer to read than most books. I kept putting it down to read something else. It only got weirder when Melissa went through puberty. I was hoping for some explanation at the end, where the prologue is picked up again. Too cryptic. Wish I hadn't spend the time.
I can't believe I am the only person to give this book 1 star!
I can't believe I am the only person to give this book 1 star!
1 like · like · see review
Sweetie and Melissa on one hand seem to be total opposites. Melissa is over-weight, wears glasses and feels every cruel remark of kids at school. She, like her father believes in the magic of science. Enter Sweetie. Unlike Melissa, she often has little to eat and believes in the magic of the mountain. They find in each other a friendship to last an eternity; this was an excellent coming-of-age story with a touch of mountain magic in it. Of course anytime you can inject a story with mountain magi...more
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Magendie is a writer, editor, Co-Managing Editor of The Rose & Thorn Ezine, and author of her debut novel Tender Graces. Her short stories, essays, poetry, and photography have been published in online and print magazines. "
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“All I wanted to do was go back inside to the library and read a book.I used to spend all my time reading books, or watching television. It was safe. Nobody ever was hurt or teased or looked stupid while reading books or watching television.”
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Aug 01, 2011 03:41am