As a girl growing up in Idlewild, Michigan, Ava Johnson had always heard that, if you were young, black, and had any sense at all, Atlanta was the place to be. So as soon as she was old enough and able enough, that was where she went -- parlaying her smarts and her ambition into one of the hottest hair salons in town.
In no time, she was moving with the brothers and sisters who had beautiful clothes, big cars, bigger dreams, and money in the bank. Now, after more than a decade of elegant pleasures and luxe living, Ava has come home, her fabulous career and power plans smashed to bits on one dark truth. Ava Johnson has tested positive for HIV. And she's back in little Idlewild to spend a quiet summer with her widowed sister, Joyce, before moving on to finish her life in San Francisco, the most HIV-friendly place she can imagine. But what she thinks is the end is only the beginning because there's too much going down in her hometown for Ava to ignore. There's the Sewing Circus -- sister Joyce's determined effort to educate Idlewild's young black women about sex, drugs, pregnancy, whatever...despite the interference of the good Reverend Anderson and his most virtuous, "just say no" wife. Plus Joyce needs a helping hand to make a loving home for Imani, an abandoned crack baby whom she's taken into her heart. And then there's Wild Eddie, whose legendary background in violence combined with his Eastern gentility has stirred Ava's interest...and something more.

I picked this book up off the book table at the Meet and Greet night on Friday 17th Feb.
Looks interesting, cool title.
I plan to read it.

I am going to start this book tonight. (Thursday 11 May)

I finished reading this book this afternoon, a very good book.
A lot of things happened in this book, both good and bad to the characters, but they managed to get through it all.
I was glad that Imani was able to go to a good home rather than stay with her parents, as she wouldn't have lived very long in their care. It was terrible how they treated her in less than 48 hours.
Ava had a lot to deal with, having her own problems as well as what was going on around her.
It didn't take long to see that Gerry Anderson wasn't too be trusted, and we were proved right.

I will take this to the special Meetup we are having on Saturday.

Picked up at the meetup with the Dunedin bookcrossers on Saturday. Every time I go to Dunedin I seem to end up taking one of KiwiKat's books back to Christchurch with me...

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A moving (and fast-moving) story about building community, and living each day as it comes. The ending was a bit *too* happily-ever-after for me - it seemed like all the town's problems had been solved just by a handful of people leaving, when all the way through the author had been implying that the problems were a product of society, not just of one or two bad apples spoiling the barrel. I'm probably just being cynical, but heart-warming endings like this never do much for me, because I'm just left thinking about how removed that is from real life, where so many children like Amani don't get rescued in the nick of time, where people like Joyce end up betrayed so many times by the people they're trying to help that they give up, where old people still live in fear even when one particular Frank has moved on, because they know there'll be another one along soon.

Sorry, it's sounding like I hated this book - I didn't at all, it was a great story, and felt very truthful right up until the end, when unfortunately the need for a nice heart-warming ending took over. And who knows, maybe I *am* being too cynical, maybe life does work out happily ever after for everyone sometimes - I hope so, anyway.

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Given to another bookcrosser at today's meetup.

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Picked up at lunch today

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

Released at the new OBCZ

The Christchurch bookcrossers meet up on a regular basis,the information is on BCNZ Yahoo NZ The main organizers are FutureCat and myself and we welcome new members to our very friendly group.