Rating: 
Summary: Amazing.
Review: Mama Day is a wonderful, powerful book. The people and places are described so vividly that at times it is difficult to remember that you aren't in Willow Springs with them, you are just reading a book about them. Intense and insightful, one of the best books I have ever read.
Rating:
Summary: A Poignant and Powerful Love Story!
Review: Mama Day is an exquisitely well-written story! Naylor does a stellar job of giving us a "classical novel" with a complex plot which includes doublings and foreshadowings and the folk tale combination. It's a contemporary love story, a timeless generational saga and tale of the supernatural. The storyline spans two worlds. One is the southern island Willow Springs, inhabited solely by the descendants of slaves a place with its own rules and exempt from many of the racist laws of the mainland. The other world is New York City with its millions of people and what seems like madness everywhere. The two worlds meet when Ophelia aka Cocoa(Willow Springs) and George(New York City) meet and eventually fall in love and get married. Of course, it was the intervention of Mama Day who brought them together. I loved Mama Day the nearly 100 year old great-aunt who helped to raise Cocoa. Mama Day was said to know the working of roots, herbal cures and could summon lightning with her walking stick...uum some thought she could even make lighting strike in the same place twice. Mama Day was wise beyond her days and was said to know the true story of "the great, grand Mother" Sapphira Wade, who in 1823 persuaded her master to deed the island to his slaves and supposedly bore him seven sons in just a thousand days...yeah right she had 7 sons in 2.7 years...hmm...that's definitely supernatural. Anywho then Sapphira Wade went onto to kill her master before she vanished in a burst of flame. And since that event there's been a lot of 18 & 23 going on an enigma of an island called Willow Spring. But while Mama's Day world is steeped in superstition and the supernatural, George's world is one of logic, the present and city life. And unfortunately because George cannot believe what he can't understand the two worlds will clash for him.Naylor's writing is ambitious and complex yet smooth, fluid and compelling in Mama Day. Naylor expertly explores and effects several kinds of reconciliation: the rural past and the urban present; myth and history; individuals and communities; faith and logic; the living and the dead. Naylor provides much insight and wit regarding how we should live but most importantly we take away "everybody wants to be right in a world where there ain't no right or wrong to be found." The characters are colorful and sometimes reminiscent of folks we know. I loved rereading this book because there was so much more I discovered the second time around. Gloria Naylor takes a romance and infuses it with the magic,mystery and tragedy that accompanies true love. MAMA DAY has strong political tones, lively social commentary, and yet still manages to warm the heart. I will probably read this book again and again as it's quite simply a great book!
Rating:
Summary: Refreshing, Astonishing and a Masterpiece; Downright Sultry
Review: Mama Day is one of my favorite books of all time. Gloria Naylor's development of time line in this book is amazing and poetic. Time flows through her book like a warm, gentle ocean wave softly shifting the sand on the shore. It warms your heart and places you on the edge of your seat. If you appreciate the simple or the magical, you will be entranced. Naylor is able to paint pictures so vivid with her writing that it is like being inside the book yourself. It was a book that I read in two days because I couldn't put it down. I have already given it as a gift to two other women. This book reaches a wide audience of women of all different ages, classes and races. Mama Day is my favorite book by Gloria Naylor.
Rating: 
Summary: An intelligent read
Review: Mama day lacks the character and spirit of Gloria Naylor's earlier novel in her "Women of Brewster placE" trilogy, Bailey's Cafe, but continues to explore the lives and destiny of the Christ child born in Bailey's Cafe. The issues explored are important, and the novel stands as a strong cultural symbol, and I reccomend it to any Gloria Naylor fans.
Rating:
Summary: Gloria Naylor is bad to the bone, that's all I can say
Review: Ms. Naylor is the woman!!!! This book was required reading for an undergraduate English class and let me tell you after years and years of required reading this is the only book I felt was worth the time and the money I spent. Ms. Naylor is a great writer. She has such a great sense of character development. She has great descriptions of people and places she has a way of making you feel like you are right there with the characters. I would say this book is almost, better than the Women of Brewster Place, which was an excellent read also. Naylor is a great writer, and this book deserves more than five stars.!!!!!!
Rating:
Summary: An outstanding book, excellent for book clubs!
Review: My book club read this book and everyone loved it! It is entertaining, interesting, moving, and fast-paced. It is an excellent book club book because there are a lot of things that are confusing and MUST be discussed with others who have read the book. I am so glad that this book was recommended - we all loved it!!
Rating:
Summary: Amazing novel
Review: Naylor's Mama Day is not only one of the best books I've ever read, but also one of the most intriguing. This novel takes the reader on a journey that is just mysterious enough to
keep you on the edge of your seat, but revealing enough to present interesting ideas throughout the entire novel. Naylor tackles issues such as individuality, relationships, and
the giving and taking that must occur in each.
The story takes the reader through the relationship of a strong woman named Cocoa and an independent man named George. The combination of Cocoa's rich heritage with George's lack of a past creates nothing short of an explosion when the two take a journey to Cocoa's home island to stay with her aunt, Mama Day.
The title character is a strong, well-respected woman on the island who is known for her ability to cure just about anything with herbal medicine. When the young couple visits the
island and Cocoa is made ill by an evil woman, George's ability to let go is put to the test as he is asked to rely on other people to save his wife.
The story is told through multiple perspectives, making it impossible for the reader to get bored. Naylor's book is an amazingly written novel that will entertain and captivate an
audience, no matter how many times it is read.
Rating:
Summary: Naylor Gives Us Reason to Rejoice About the "Day"
Review: Never have I ever read a novel so richly fulfilling to the human soul, and to the human sense of what matters in life as "Mama Day." Readers beware: this book is best for those weary souls who have succumbed to sarcasm, cynicism and pessimism growing like weeds around the heart. Naylor may begin her story with a little island called Willow Springs, and she may tempt us and draw us in with promises of adventure, history, a search for long-buried treasure and mystery, but ultimately this book is about faith. It is not your everyday brand of faith that may be conjured when it seems there is a hardship abrewing. No, this is the type of deep down, didn't-know-you-had-it-still-burning-within-you, long forgotten, but still important brand of faith in humanity, and in love which makes each day worth living. Lots of us have lost it. Lots of us have forgotten that it makes this life a lot easier to live. Lots of us have given up on ever seeing it again. However, with Naylor's stunning, and accurate comprehension of the way love exists between two hearts, no soiled soul will go untilled. It is almost as if Miss Gloria had the privilege of serving an internship with love itself at an early age. She writes what we think. She writes what we feel. She does all this, sometimes, before we have ever thought it or felt it. She does this without knowing if we ever have thought it or felt it. But when you put this book down, you will think it, you will feel it. The way that Naylor dualistically narrates this book, whether it is an exchange between George and Cocoa, or a discourse between Mama Day and Cocoa, gives us the chance to believe that the same center exists at the core of every human soul. She bares her knowledge of human frailty to us to make us understand that we are not alone in our struggles against time, space, and even faith itself. This book changed the way I think and believe. This book will change the way you meet, and acquaint yourself with people. I could never suggest anything better for one's self than reading "Mama Day."
Rating: 
Summary: Requires a lot of effort to follow the story!
Review: On a positive note, the book, characters, and plot were unique...definitely not your ordinary read. However, I found the book to sometimes be confusing and it was difficult to figure out who was doing the speaking early in the chapters. Additionally, I didn't care for all the supernatural aspects of the book. The book was not enjoyable to me because it required too much effort and back peddling to understand.
Rating:
Summary: Moving and Lyrical
Review: Once I began reading Mama Day, Gloria Naylor's folklore novel, I just couldn't put it down. This is one of the best books I've ever read. The plot was kind of slow-building, but as I got to know everyone in Willow Springs, I felt like they were family. Cocoa and George were a moving couple, and it just broke my heart when ... oh well, I won't give away the ending. What really impressed me about Mama Day was the strength of Naylor's writing. Having to juggle three completely different character plots, she managed to give each one an authentic voice. The depth of her characterization was truly amazing. If you want to read a book that is moving, hilarious, and mythical, please read Mama Day.
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