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bethswantz's review against another edition
4.0
Racism in the south is like another character in this story of love and two women- one white and the other black. But calling it a story of love makes it sound sappy and predictable - and that is to short change it. This is a story of worlds crashing and reshaping in the midst of deep heart break! A story of strength and frailty.
Betty Jewel is a washed up jazz singer who burned brightly with Saint a famous trumpeter. But drugs and fame soured everything and Betty Jewel fled from her marriage to Shakerag, Mississippi to be with her mama and raise her daughter. In a last ditch effort to save that daughter, she takes out an ad in the local paper looking for someone to adopt her girl after she passes from cancer.
Cassie is the lily white widow of a much beloved local coach. Since his death she has floundered her way through life barely living and depending on her job at the local newspaper to keep her going. She notices the ad and decides it would make a wonderful human interest story.
And thus the worlds crash.
But - this is not a touchy feely feel good story.
At the heart of this story is a 10 year old girl who will soon be without a mama. Billie, who sneaks around listening at keyholes, can not imagine a life without her mama - unless she is able to find her papa - Saint - and life with him.
Laid across the top of this story is the busted history of Jim Crow laws and lynchings in the south.
There were times this felt like a different version of The Help. But, Betty Jewel and Cassie are not merely telling a story - they are living it. Their lives are interwoven in a way that the south can not rip apart.
I really liked this book. I especially liked Billie. After teaching 10 year olds all those years - I felt like I knew her innocent and bare face. Her bravado and her depth of pain were real to me! The fantasies that she creates and believes in even while she knowing they can't be real - rang true!
I would recommend this!!
Betty Jewel is a washed up jazz singer who burned brightly with Saint a famous trumpeter. But drugs and fame soured everything and Betty Jewel fled from her marriage to Shakerag, Mississippi to be with her mama and raise her daughter. In a last ditch effort to save that daughter, she takes out an ad in the local paper looking for someone to adopt her girl after she passes from cancer.
Cassie is the lily white widow of a much beloved local coach. Since his death she has floundered her way through life barely living and depending on her job at the local newspaper to keep her going. She notices the ad and decides it would make a wonderful human interest story.
And thus the worlds crash.
But - this is not a touchy feely feel good story.
At the heart of this story is a 10 year old girl who will soon be without a mama. Billie, who sneaks around listening at keyholes, can not imagine a life without her mama - unless she is able to find her papa - Saint - and life with him.
Laid across the top of this story is the busted history of Jim Crow laws and lynchings in the south.
There were times this felt like a different version of The Help. But, Betty Jewel and Cassie are not merely telling a story - they are living it. Their lives are interwoven in a way that the south can not rip apart.
I really liked this book. I especially liked Billie. After teaching 10 year olds all those years - I felt like I knew her innocent and bare face. Her bravado and her depth of pain were real to me! The fantasies that she creates and believes in even while she knowing they can't be real - rang true!
I would recommend this!!
bookjockeybeth's review against another edition
ARC supplied by publisher via NetGalley
bahfox's review against another edition
2.0
Predictable and trite. All of the racial problems of the 50's in the South are evident throughout the book but seem to just vanish at the end of the story.
tangerine7199's review against another edition
2.0
What a disappointment. I found this to be so unrealistic and SO predictable. People previously mad at each other (with good reason, mind you) become the best of friends? In the age of Emmett Till and the KKK, the reader is supposed to believe a white woman legally adopts a black child effortlessly? We're supposed to believe that two women who loved the same man become best friends? The dialogue between these two groups of people is so so sweet it gave me a cavity and not in a good way.
This book had such potential but fell very short.
This book had such potential but fell very short.
gotobedmouse's review against another edition
4.0
This books had a big helping of "Beaches", a heaping cup full of "the Help". a dash of "Dream with little Angels", and a light sprinkling of Steel Magnolias, garnished with some Fannie Flagg vernacular.
rwidiani's review against another edition
2.0
It's not a bad book but I just don't feel it... Stopped it the half way
sha_z's review against another edition
3.0
This was a simple heartwarming story about family bonds and strong friendship. It follows the story of a white woman keeping a promise to adopt a black girl in the 1950s. To be honest, I can’t help but thinking this will never happened that easily in real life. But overall, this was readable.
southernhon's review against another edition
3.0
I'm a sucker for any book that tackles race relations, especially in America in the South before or during the civil rights movement. Some have compared this book to the immensely popular book "The Help" and I did see many similarities. Some have also called this another "white savior" book, which was a complaint that was made about "The Help". African Americans, poor and mistreated, come to rely on an angel in the form of a white woman who breaks racial barriers and risks her life, limb and social standing to perform her angelic and somewhat unbelievable miracles. The Sweetest Hallelujah revolves around an African American, Bettie Jewel, a former blues singer, Bettie's mother "Queen" and Bettie's 11 year old daughter, Billie. Tragically, Bettie Jewel has terminal cancer and decides to take out an ad in a local newspaper for someone to care for Billie after she succumbs to the cancer. Enter Cassie Malone, a young childless widow who sees the ad and drives to Bettie's home in Shakerag, Mississippi to do a story on this woman who would place such an ad. From here on, cans of worms are opened left and right. Bettie, Queen, and Bettie's friends don't trust and don't like Cassie.
****************SPOILER ALERT BELOW******************
Cassie discovers that Billie is tbe illegitmate daughter of her dead husband, Joe. Joe and Bettie's one-night stand resulted in this child, a biracial child who believes that her father is a once-famous trumpet player, Saint Hughes. Why does she believe that? She is led to believe that because her mother never told her the truth, which leads Billie to idolize this "father", who is really a washed-up, drug abusing womanizer who treated Bettie terribly.
When Cassie discovers that her husband fathered Billie, she is enraged, but eventually decides to befriend Bettie and Billie and help them. Bettie and Cassie becomes best friends who have bonded over the welfare of Billie, who Cassie feels she must protect. After all, what woman doesn't want to help the woman who had an affair with her husband AND the child that was produced? To add salt to Cassie's wounds, she was infertile and could not conceive.
Billie, who still believes that Saint Hughes is her father, runs away in attempt to find him so that he can help finance Bettie's medical care. Billie believes that Saint can pay for the best doctors so that her mother will not die.
In the end, everyone finds out the truth, Bettie does indeed die and Cassie legally adopts Billie to live happily ever after in white privilege.
I gave this book 3 stars because I had to suspend my disbelief too often for my liking. I also felt that the author relied too heavily upon stupid metaphors and overused phrases. Why do all of the women in this book walk with "arms linked?" Why are house numbers and stains on tables both "tattooed?" It almost felt as if the author was trying too hard to draw us a picture. However, where she failed is in the development of the characters. Billie could have been so much more interesting and Bettie Jewel was so boring I wondered why it took her so long to finally die. Queen was forever baking and her dialogue was over the top with her dialect. Cassie seemed likable; however, she also seemed like somewhat of a wimp.
****************SPOILER ALERT BELOW******************
Cassie discovers that Billie is tbe illegitmate daughter of her dead husband, Joe. Joe and Bettie's one-night stand resulted in this child, a biracial child who believes that her father is a once-famous trumpet player, Saint Hughes. Why does she believe that? She is led to believe that because her mother never told her the truth, which leads Billie to idolize this "father", who is really a washed-up, drug abusing womanizer who treated Bettie terribly.
When Cassie discovers that her husband fathered Billie, she is enraged, but eventually decides to befriend Bettie and Billie and help them. Bettie and Cassie becomes best friends who have bonded over the welfare of Billie, who Cassie feels she must protect. After all, what woman doesn't want to help the woman who had an affair with her husband AND the child that was produced? To add salt to Cassie's wounds, she was infertile and could not conceive.
Billie, who still believes that Saint Hughes is her father, runs away in attempt to find him so that he can help finance Bettie's medical care. Billie believes that Saint can pay for the best doctors so that her mother will not die.
In the end, everyone finds out the truth, Bettie does indeed die and Cassie legally adopts Billie to live happily ever after in white privilege.
I gave this book 3 stars because I had to suspend my disbelief too often for my liking. I also felt that the author relied too heavily upon stupid metaphors and overused phrases. Why do all of the women in this book walk with "arms linked?" Why are house numbers and stains on tables both "tattooed?" It almost felt as if the author was trying too hard to draw us a picture. However, where she failed is in the development of the characters. Billie could have been so much more interesting and Bettie Jewel was so boring I wondered why it took her so long to finally die. Queen was forever baking and her dialogue was over the top with her dialect. Cassie seemed likable; however, she also seemed like somewhat of a wimp.
ciska's review against another edition
3.0
*Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book on Netgalley from the publisher in return for an honest review*
Author
Elaine Hussey is a writer, actress and musician who likes to describe herself as “Southern to the bone.” She lives in Mississippi, where her love of blues and admiration for the unsung heroes of her state’s history served as inspiration for The Sweetest Hallelujah.
Review
I enjoyed reading this book but it failed to leave a big emotional impression though all the ingredients where there. But there where so many situations to take in that the speed of the story did not really allow me to drown in the sadness of it all. In a way this was pleasant, I do not really like books that make me cry every other page on the other hand I did feel like I missed out on something.
This is a book about strong woman. All of them learn to survive in their own way. I for sure would not want to be a man in their life because the pictures I got from the men involved was not really nice. Only Tiny Jim could get some credit but not to much. I really loved how all the characters had their own thing that made them stand out. Queen is the person gluing all the other characters together with food, prayer and wise lessons. I really loved her and was really able to connect with her. Betty Jewel and Cassie felt the same to me, both convinced the world is supposed to be a better place. For me they where a bit too alike to see them as really separate characters. With Billy I had some trouble with her age against her behavior she did not always feel as a ten year old but mostly younger. What I did like was that while the story was developing she was changing which became more clear in her behavior towards her best friend Lucy. She already had more spunk that her best friend but at the end of the story it was clear she had been trough much more emotionally than Lucy and that made her a bit older.
I need to give Elaine Hussey a compliment for not letting the many situations she touched in her story distract her from her main story.
Author
Elaine Hussey is a writer, actress and musician who likes to describe herself as “Southern to the bone.” She lives in Mississippi, where her love of blues and admiration for the unsung heroes of her state’s history served as inspiration for The Sweetest Hallelujah.
Review
I enjoyed reading this book but it failed to leave a big emotional impression though all the ingredients where there. But there where so many situations to take in that the speed of the story did not really allow me to drown in the sadness of it all. In a way this was pleasant, I do not really like books that make me cry every other page on the other hand I did feel like I missed out on something.
This is a book about strong woman. All of them learn to survive in their own way. I for sure would not want to be a man in their life because the pictures I got from the men involved was not really nice. Only Tiny Jim could get some credit but not to much. I really loved how all the characters had their own thing that made them stand out. Queen is the person gluing all the other characters together with food, prayer and wise lessons. I really loved her and was really able to connect with her. Betty Jewel and Cassie felt the same to me, both convinced the world is supposed to be a better place. For me they where a bit too alike to see them as really separate characters. With Billy I had some trouble with her age against her behavior she did not always feel as a ten year old but mostly younger. What I did like was that while the story was developing she was changing which became more clear in her behavior towards her best friend Lucy. She already had more spunk that her best friend but at the end of the story it was clear she had been trough much more emotionally than Lucy and that made her a bit older.
I need to give Elaine Hussey a compliment for not letting the many situations she touched in her story distract her from her main story.