Saving CeeCee Honeycutt

by Beth Hoffman

Book Overview

Read Beth Hoffman's blogs and other content on the Penguin Community. Steel Magnolias meets The Help in this Southern debut novel sparkling with humor, heart, and feminine wisdom Twelve-year-old CeeCee Honeycutt is in trouble. For years, she has been the caretaker of her psychotic mother, Camille-the tiara-toting, lipstick-smeared laughingstock of an entire town-a woman trapped in her long-ago moment of glory as the 1951 Vidalia Onion Queen. But when...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0670021393
• ISBN13: 9780670021390
• Release Date: January 2010
• Publisher: Pamela Dorman Books
• Length: 306 Pages
• Weight: 0.98 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 5.8" x 8.6"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Really Good

I have had this novel on my shelf for several years and just never picked it up to read. I love Southern fiction, so I don't know why I have never read this until now. Oh, what I was missing! I loved this novel! It has been a while since I have laughed and cried in the same story repeatedly. Deborah Smith has always been one of my favorite Southern authors, but now I can add Beth Hoffman to that list as well. Great story! I fell in love with the characters and didn't want the story to end. I just kept reading and reading. Thanks Beth Hoffman for a great read!

Feel good read

I wasn’t too sure if I was going to enjoy this book at first, but as I continued to read it I found myself not putting the book down for a long time. The characters in this book are amazing and it almost feels like you have personally known them yourself. The wonderful childhood mischief CeeCee experiences makes you reflect on some of your childhood memories. Although this book had many adventures that the main character experiences as a child, it also touches a subject that every human being on this earth has or will experience in their lifetime, and that is the loss of a loved one. You experience the many different grieving experiences that a few of the characters experience. Overall a great book. I would love to see this as a movie in the future.

A Little of Everything

I LOVED this book. I felt sadness, I felt empathy, and sometimes I actually laughed out loud. It did remind me a lot of "The Help" with all of the same emotions I felt reading that book and seeing that movie. I have read another of Beth Hoffman's books, but I enjoyed this one the most. I have shared this book with others, and they enjoyed it too.

Loved it!!

Loved this book!! It makes you cry, it makes you laugh abd best of all I couldn't put it down.

Saving CeeCee Honeycut

I must confess, I DID NOT LIKE THE BOOK. Having a mother who suffered with Alzheimers makes this sound petty & nuts. They are not the same person when Alzheimer's takes over. I had a hard time believing this story happened in the 1967's. That's when I graduated from college, married and some of the these 'neighbors' were white trash. Tne black women had so much more class but lacked the financial benefits of their white ladies. I wouldn't recommend it. It was crude and not the least bit funny. Yes, I know class & opportunity when I see it. Sad tale about a 12 year old.

Not a book genre tht I usually read!

This book is so funny and heart felt rolled into one. I laughed from the beginning all the way 2 the end. At times I wanted 2 weep 4 cee cee. But she encounters some wonderful people that absolutely help keep her grounded through all! This book makes me want 2 read more from Beth Hoffman. Kinda disappointed 2 only see she has 2 books. Or I can only find 2.

Simply the best book with which to start a new year!

There's a well-known saying that when life hands you lemons, make lemonade. Unfortunately for Cecilia Honeycutt, the 12-year-old girl at the center of Beth Hoffman's phenomenal debut novel, the lemons life has thrown at her are rotten, unsalvageable fruits, and clearly something or someone else is going to have to intervene if she will taste any sweetness in life. CeeCee has grown up in a sm all town in Ohio. Her mother is Camille Sugarbaker Honeycutt, a 1951 Vidalia Onion Queen and, via her marriage, a northern transplant. Sadly, like the beautiful and delicate flower whose name she bears, life for Camille Honeycutt above the Mason-Dixon line is an impossible climate in which to thrive. Today we might say CeeCee's mother has schizophrenia, is a manic-depressive, or, at the very least, is mentally disturbed. In the world of the late 1960s that CeeCee inhabits, she just knows that her mother's mood and mindset can change at the drop of a hat. She's aware that it's because of her mother's instability that her father, a machine tool salesman, stays away for weeks at a time leaving her to cope in an endless game of who's taking care of who. It seems everyone knows CeeCee's mother is crazy, but other than an 80-year-old neighbor, Mrs. Gertrude Odell, no one makes any effort to nurture CeeCee or intervene in the situation. Poor CeeCee has developed into a bright student whose best friend is Nancy Drew and whose only mother figure is the tottering Mrs. Odell, who loves CeeCee like a grandchild but is just too old to offer anything more helpful than Sunday morning pancakes. Camille's title of Vidalia Onion Queen is obviously a crowning moment that her tortured psyche is constantly attempting to recapture. She is one of the best customers at the local Goodwill, carrying home armloads of ragged prom gowns and wedding dresses until her closets bulge. Into these dresses she will slip, a tiara perched upon her head, before positioning herself in the front yard to blow kisses at passing cars. It was in just one such dress that she either steps or stumbles in front of (CeeCee is never totally sure which) a truck that finally brings her agonizing reign to a tragic end. It is the afternoon following the funeral and CeeCee has much to ponder. Her mother is dead. Her father has no idea how to raise a child and, based on Camille's suspicions, probably has at least one woman waiting in the wings. She knows her mother loved her deeply yet can't understand why she not only always made life so difficult but has ultimately left her all alone. Is there a special place in heaven for people who were mentally ill, or do they automatically get well in the afterlife? In the midst of such contemplations, a car pulls into the driveway. Not just any car, but a vintage shiny red Packard convertible with a shiny, outstretched guardian angel (named Delilah) on the hood. Tootie Caldwell has arrived. Tallulah Caldwell is CeeCee's great-aunt who only ever saw baby CeeCee once befor

Southern Healing Power

CeeCee Honeycutt is 12 when her mother dies and her great aunt Talullah comes to Ohio to take her to Savannah to live with her. Up until that point, CeeCee's life has been pretty miserable. Her mother became more and more a victim of her mental illness and her father was gone most of the time. Savannah opens up a whole new world for CeeCee. It's the Savannah of the early 60's and CeeCee has her first experience with racial discrimination. But she also has the joy of her daily interactions with Oletta, her aunt's housekeeper and very good friend. There are two neighbors who provide comic relief including one incident involving slugs. And by the end of the summer, it seems as if CeeCee's greatest wish may come true. "Saving CeeCee Honeycutt" is filled with life - it's sad and funny, hopeful and filled with women its great to spend time with. They really are a stunning group of characters.

This One Was Definitely Worth Five Stars

I don't give many five star reviews, but Beth Hoffman has a five star book (for sure!) with Saving CeeCee Honeycutt. The story opens with CeeCee (actually Cecilia) desperately trying to handle her mother's slow descent into madness. The writing grips you from the first line. I love books that grab my interest right away. The story is tragic at times, hilarious at others. If you love Southern fiction, this will be a favorite. This book reminded me of Cold Rock River or of Fair and Tender Ladies, also two of my favorites. I don't read many books over again, but I will this one. This is a great book to curl up with by the fire this winter, or to take on that long plane ride. But don't start it late in the day unless you want to be sitting up all night reading. It's that good. Really.

The Future of Southern Fiction Is In Good Hands

Cecelia(Cee-Cee)Honeycutt is a twelve year old girl tending her mentally ill mother in Ohio when the mother is suddenly, violently killed. The absentee father sends broken-hearted, emotionally exhausted, Cee-Cee off to abide with a great-aunt in Savannah, GA. Eccentric characters, including a black cook, Oletta, who conjures recipes for Cee-Cee's heart as well as stomach, funny neighbors who bring the joy of laughter back to Cee-Cee, and Aunt Tootie who loves Cee-Cee towards wellness alight off the pages of this bittersweet tale. Beth Hoffman concocts the essence of southern fiction....loquacious descriptions that send the floral arrays right into the nostrils of the reader; imaginative, inventive similes that conjure images not soon forgotten; characters rich with amusing antics and life-earned wisdom. I loved this book; I loved it because it is believable without being so depressing I want to slit my wrists. It is truthful in it's ugliness, yet hopeful in it's general belief that life holds a plethora of promise. Beautiful writing, Ms. Hoffman, and may you have many, many more successes as this book is destined to be.

New Southern fiction on the loose!!!

I am so glad Ms Hoffman decided to quit interior design and write because this is a Southern gem! Cecelia Rose, otherwise known as Cee-Cee takes care of her mentally ill mother while her father is a traveling salesman. She has her hands full with her mother, and doesn't really have a life of her own. Well, the town snickers at her and her family because of her mother's behaviors. She loves to wear old prom dresses and stand outside waving at people. Her favorite thing to do is go to Goodwill once a week and get more of these dresses. That is how she passes away, and Cee-Cee goes to live with her great aunt Tootie. Scared at first, not feeling good enough, she comes to find out how great she really is and how wonderful life really can be. The imagery described will leave you breathless and longing to sit in the garden with them! You will love being on this ride with Cee-Cee, finding out what happens in her "Life Book". Precious gem of a book, I read it as fast as I could, wanting to know experience more with Cee-Cee, Oletta, Aunt Tootie and more of the cast of characters, but now that it is over, I am sad. I hope Ms. Hoffman has more to share with us, I am indebited for such a wonderful read.