Rating: 
Summary: Crazy Day easy Read
Review: This was a very easy read a page-turner, I enjoyed all of the characters and the story as a whole, and I would definitely recommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: Very Good Read !!
Review: Major props to Ms. Cleage. Very gifted writer. This is a first for me and it was a page turner. I enjoyed the characters and the education about being HIV positive. The underhandedness of the "church folk" had me on the tip of my seat waiting for them to get theirs. Everything worked out in the end and it didn't take a long time to get there either. I think the bad guys were fairly shallow and they didn't receive much sympathy for their lifestyles. I can't wait to read her other two novels. Good Job !!!
Rating: 
Summary: Telling It Like It Is
Review: Pearl Cleage offers a very realistic yet hard look into the life of an HIV positive black woman.Ava Johnson leaves her big city Atlanta life and heads to her hometown to spend the summer with her widowed sister to gain some peace and relaxation while she battles with HIV. However, once Ava arrives she realizes that her small childhood hometown has its fair share of problems which Ava finds herself smack dab in the middle of. Ava's sister's determination to do good in the community fuels Ava to stay on and tackle the town's growing problems of crack addiction, teenage pregnancy and violence. Also, for the first time in Ava's life she has found love. The voice and the guts the author gave this story was very enjoyable. However, some of the characters seemed a little too created with Eddie being way too perfect and the reverend's wife being way too conniving. All in all this was an enjoyable book but just a little rough on the edges. Like life, enjoyable but with a few rough edges which is what I think the author was trying to portray....real life.
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Summary: Real Characters
Review: Although this book was a pretty easy read, I was impressed that the characters seemed so real. The subject of HIV is one most people do not want to even broach. I enjoyed the love story between two unlikely characters. However, I was most impressed that Pearl Cleage choice Idlwild, Michigan as the setting of this story of devastation, love, and hope.
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Summary: Sometimes you need to lose everything to find yourself
Review: An unforeseen diagnosis sends Ava Johnson into a tailspin and the high-powered lifestyle she's built for herself in Atlanta falls apart. She decides: it is time to move. Setting her heart on San Francisco, she's makes a pit-stop in her old home town, sleepy Idlewild, Michigan. An alluring all-Black resort town in its heyday, Idlewild lost its summer residents to integration. In the ensuing unemployment and poverty, Idlewild has succumbed to so-called "big-city" problems like drugs and violence. Ava rejoins her sister Joyce, who settled in Idlewild. Joyce is a storehouse of nonstop energy that she devotes to the community through her group, The Sewing Circus, offering support and education for the teenaged mothers of her church. What begins as a stopover for Ava quickly grows into something much more. Before long she is intimately drawn into Joyce's work. As a string of violent events builds to a crescendo, the mystery of who's behind them and their strange connection to the pastor and his wife culminate in a climax that had me holding my breath and turning pages as fast as my fingers could fly. Interweaved through all this drama, Ava re-meets an old friend, Eddie Jefferson, and the sparks fly, just when she's given up on love. But Eddie has some dark secrets of his own...
I love this book. Pearl Cleage so skillfully weaves suspense and romance, street-wisdom and compassion, humor and poignancy in this book, I read like it was going out of style. I could hear her playwriting experience in the sharp dialogue and characters' thoughts. What made this book for me were the characters. We get to grow with Ava as the book progresses. Joyce's and Eddie's characters have a complexity and depth that make them real. My only criticisms of this book are that the "bad guys" don't have nearly the depth of the other characters, making them proportionately less believable, and the ending leaves a few loose ends... In the big picture, these were minor flaws.
Charisse Sisou
R.E.A.L. Reviewers
Rating: 
Summary: Not up to expectations
Review: After choosing this book because of the reviews, I was surprised when reading it. The characters though somewhat interesting were failed by choppy plotting and ill conceived situations as well as suffering from dull prose and dialogue. To top it off, this author seems to have spent little or no time in Michigan - did she think no one would notice when she moved her make believe town from one side of the state to the other - where was her editor???? Very disapointing.
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Summary: Surprising how interested I became in this book
Review: I had not heard of this author before reading the book & absolutely loved it. From beginning to end I became absorbed in the characters & felt like I knew them personally. This doesn't happen in too many books for me.
The characters are well developed & written & are brought to life by the author's vivid descriptions.
I also felt like I had been invited into the lives of the characters to share their joys, tears & fears.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book & would recommend it to others.
Rating: 
Summary: One of the Best
Review: That was one of the best books I've ever read. I thought it was going to be boring, but Ms.Cleage showed me.
Rating:
Summary: Must Read
Review: This book grabbed me from the first page and didn't let me go until last. I finished it in 4 hours! It is so well written that you actually become part of the book and the daily lives of Ava, Joyce, Imani and Eddie. I only wish it were longer, so you have more time with these people.
Rating:
Summary: Universal themes - enjoyable characters
Review: I am a white girl from the suburbs, and could not relate much to the characters in this book - or so I thought. It turns out that people from all walks of life have a lot of the same needs... love, family, fulfillment, spririt, a sense of purpose. I loved this book and definately recommend it.
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