This book started out with an interesting premise. I love a mom who has gone crazy-train and thinks she's a beauty queen 24/7. But then it didn't go anywhere. Following her mother's death CeeCee moves to Savannah where apparently everyone is wonderful and everything perfect (Except Mrs. Hobbs who really isn't that bad. I didn't like Mrs. Goodpepper that much to be honest). It has a couple of false-starts where I think there will be action and plot starting but almost as soon as it's there they've moved on to another small vignette of CeeCee's savannah life.

This book may have squelch by with 3 stars but at times the prose felt purple. I listened to this on audiobook (love Jenna Lamia) and it was hard to ignore the fact their were similes almost every sentence. Example "The clouds were like the veil of a runaway bride" probably not the exact wording because I have no way to look it up. The little girl is 12 and as far as I garner she has no experience with runaway brides (this is prior to the popular movie). The similes and imagery often felt distracting and unnatural. Some people love pretty flowery language but I am not one of them.

It's probably a good thing I listened to this on audiobook or else I could give you a whole list of similes, metaphors and images that didn't work for me. But lucky for both of us I can't do that.

Audiobook comment: As always Jenna Lamia does an excellent job narrating. She does a young girl better than any other narrator I've heard.