Rating: 
Summary: A Simile Factory
Review: Like a typewriter stuck on one letter, this book is full of similes. As repetitive as a woodpecker working on an old oaken log, this book is full of similes. If you enjoy similes like a dog enjoys scratching his fleas, then you may find this book entertaining. Like a freshman English professor tired of reading excessive adjectives in assignments, I did not. I too stuck it through to the very end, wading through the tedious and verbose prose; probably more because I'm stubborn (and always finish my books) and not due to the fact that I was enjoying the read. The storyline, though sometimes confusing, was above average. It almost begs a sequel. But, like an imperfect movie that gets mediocre reviews, this book needs no continuation. As a fairly frequent reader, I've got one last question:
How did this make Oprah's book club?!!!
Rating: 
Summary: Mother of Pearl Review
Review: Mother of Pearl is not a novel you can forget. The author brings up issues that affect society and shows that with the help of those in their lives it creates who they are in the future. Mother of Pearl is about the struggles and issues of a small Southern town, whose people face racism, hiprocrisy, and hatred. But most importantly it shows how love and friendship can help those who suffer and who were alone realize their worth. That even though there are those who talk about you because you don't wear the right clothes or are the considered the town's whore,this novel shows that if we listen to those who judge us we will never appreciate life and waste our time worrying what they might say. In the novel a fourteen year old girl, who is the daughter of the town's whore, falls in love with her childhood friend Jackson. Both of them are friends, but their families are different. Even Grade, a thiry three year old black man, falls in love with Joody Two Son, a mixed race woman who the town thinks is crazy.
Each one of these characters shows that no matter what we do it will not turn out perfect unless we make it perfect and strive for the positive side instead of the negative side. Although in the novel Even Grade loves Joody he is attracted to a beautiful black woman named Grace. This shows that although Even has the woman he loves there is still temptation towards another woman from his side that can cause unhappiness. The novel brings about many issues that people face. Mother of Pearl gives the reader hope and faith that things will turn out good.Maybe not now, but once it does we will realize that it was worth the wait.Mother of Pearl establishes a ground base of human life and that is why I give this novel four out of five stars because of its respect for human autonomy.
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Summary: sweet, thick, and slow as molasses
Review: When I began this book, I actually put it down and picked it up again months later. It is a slow-starter, pulling you in gradually, bit by bit, until you're half-in, half-out of the quicksand and not sure whether to give in or try to get out. This time, I opted for staying in, and I was glad I did. This book contains many different plots, but as the novel reaches its conclusion, most of them blend together seamlessly and in a way that makes perfect sense... it just seems to take a while to get there. Haynes does revel in sometimes needless symbolism, and I was put off at first by the contrived similarity to Toni Morrison's _Song of Solomon_ (which was written 20 years earlier). Characters have names like Valuable Korner and Even Grade. Other characters are very unlikeable (Beryn Green, for example, father of Joleb), and some are irresistable, especially Joody Two Sun (who is a magical woman living by the river). The river is very important in the novel, as are dreams, connections between people, and family ties. Sometimes I would have to re-read sections due to the large number of characters... I would actually lose track of what had happened to whom, even though I read the book constantly. Other aspects of the novel were frustrating and painful. However, I was thoroughly moved by the novel and was transported, finally, by Haynes' writing, which to me is the best thing a writer can do for you. I recommend this book to anyone with a little patience and some time on their hands.
Rating: 
Summary: Poetic
Review: I adored the prose-like writing of this book. It was beautifully descriptive. The tea-colored water, the old worn sign whose purpose had been forgotten...all these wonderful details really set the scene for this story. It's almost like painting with words. Of course, the characters were glorious. I especially liked Joleb, whose bluntly spoken words had me laughing out loud.
Rating: 
Summary: Strange
Review: This book was very different from all the other books I have read before. It told a couple stories at once and it got very confusing to follow at first but then once i got used to reading it, it was a good book. I liked the way the characters were all linked in the end and how they learned to get along.
The way the girl has to teach her self everything and has to learn the hardway about everything was very humbling to read. Then getting pregnant in the middle of the book and not knowing it and everyone else knowing it and not telling you till it's to late was very sad.
All in all it was a good book. I never really liked to read long books but this one kept my attention.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful!
Review: I am shocked by some of the bad reviews this book received. I thought it was outstanding. It is beautifully written. The characters are diverse, magical and thoughtfully crafted. I loved this book!
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Summary: The Reader's Guide to Poor Writing...
Review: The reviewer who used the word "pretentious" summed this one up. This book is nothing if not a long, boring, poorly edited anecdote. We have here an unrealistic portrayal of the South, circa 1956 Mississippi. No characters are fully realized, and cheap symbolism is casually thrown about with little apparent link to anything. The repetition of the phrase "You say that true.", and the broad use of the term "hasn't got a clue" (remember, this is 1956 Mississippi) cause the reader to wonder what Martha Levin (the editor)does for a living. Author Haynes needs to pick up a copy of Strunk and White's "Elements of Style" (available here at Amazon) and get this clue: OMIT NEEDLESS WORDS. How I trudged through the pages of this book and completed it is beyond my understanding. Perhaps I could not believe that these words were actually published.
Rating:
Summary: Well worth it
Review: My friend recommended this book, and it was well worth reading it. I always check other reviews before starting a new book, and this time I was afraid I would not like reading this book. I am glad I was wrong.
Mother of Pearl has many characters, including Valuable Korner, daughter of the town's whore. It was set in a small town in Mississippi in the late 1950s.
Melinda Haynes has a unique way of telling the story. It is not an easy reading, by the way. You just can't skip a word she wrote. This was her first novel, and she did a great job. She used her own Southern roots and language to describe the characters and the events.
I recommend this book, but it is not one of those novels you just cannot put down, no matter what. It can get boring sometimes, but in the very next chapter you are hooked again. I really enjoyed reading it, and I plan on reading it again someday.
Rating:
Summary: Waste of Time and Energy
Review: Oprah's books usually don't catch my attention, but since this was a hardcover at two bucks, I figured it might help while away the time this summer. This book is a complete and total MESS. I can't decide which is the most annoying and distracting: the pseudo-dreamlike images, the incredibly stupid names Haynes gives her characters, the time-worn "who's the father?" plot device, the derivitive southern gothic elements... oh I could go on and on. Usually I like to give a book the benefit of the doubt and keep reading regardless. But why I kept on til the bitter end with this one is beyond me. This book was horrible on so many levels. At two bucks, I got robbed!!
Rating:
Summary: A six-sided story
Review: As many characters and subplots as a Russian novel . . . and all the steamy ambience of Mississippi, make for a fine read. Haynes makes those magnificent first-novel mistakes of a greatly talented writer, by pouring out all the fiction that has apparently been building up in her for quite some time. The plot is rich with complexities and Dickensian surprise connections among characters and stories. Yes, you may be challenged, keeping track, but the payoffs when relationships show up late in the game are most satisfying. There's way more looking into the back corners of the story, and even fleshing out characters who aren't strictly necessary, than Haynes will likely continue to do if she tries to put herself into steady production. But I enjoyed the richness of the background behind the background behind the background. A starchily 'vertical' maiden aunt starts out seeming like a plot convenience halfway through, and becomes a very interesting person, with a life of her own, for example. Houses have as much personality as people in this novel--the achingly tidy, impoverished homes in 'the quarter' where the black characters live, the heavy enslavement of ornamental swans in another house say everything about a wealthy life built on a hideous institutional racism, the slant corners of Valuable Korner's not-quite-home reflect the girl's sad, insecure hold on life. Themes emerge that show up later in Haynes's second novel, Chalktown--the loving care given to the infirm and incapable, particularly. I'm inclined to take a little against the more flambouyant elements in this book. Joody Two Sun with her 'sight' and her hair in sticks and her line of chatter about Deep Mother and her showy gifts . . . well, she's a bit too 'new age' to convince me of her presumed cultural roots. The dream visions of the gutted sow are likewise in the 'far out there' realm. I like it that her wise-old-man character has interested himself in Greek Tragedy, because it's right that what's being enacted here (not Antigone, for sure, though she quotes it) is one of those deep, archetypal horrors in which the young and innocent inadvertantly commit crimes against nature (incest) and bring down upon themselves destructive cruelties which have everything to do with the past of the entire culture and nothing to do with their own entirely natural love for one another. Haynes can certainly tell a complex story, holding your interest, and generating great love for the time, place and people. Although it's clearly a 'first novel', it's also rich in maturity and fine writing.
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