I loved the "small town" characters with their tangled human relationships. I loved the narrative energy. I especially loved the dialogue. Ms. Whittington is a master with this--from page one:
****
"I'm going to be a surrogate mother," I [the narrator Vada Faith] said, positioning the pink salon chair so my twin sister, Joy Ruth, could see her hair in the mirror. I made the announcement calmly, as if my knees were not shaking. I held onto the back of the chair for support.
My sister's eyes popped open, wider than I'd ever seen them, and she froze for a few seconds.
I held my breath. The air between us was as charged as a new battery. The secret that I'd kept inside me for too long was now out.
"A surrogate mother!" She squealed as if I'd squirted her with bug spray instead of the expensive hair spray I held in my hand....
"Yes, I'm thinking about having a baby for a couple who can't have a child of their own."
I gave her hair another generous misting of hair spray, hoping she hadn't noticed my shaking hands.
****
This is an emotionally charged book. Lots of emotion packed into every scene. For me, it was a page turner. As I read I thought: Who hasn't wanted, at least once in life, to do something "important?" To have a lot of money to buy a dream house? To be noticed in a big way? Who hasn't at least once stood at a crossroad and made a decision that she (or he) later regretted?
We are free to choose, but for every action there's a consequence, and we can't choose that consequence or consequences as Vada Faith is about to painfully discover. However, in the process of facing the consequences of her decision to be a surrogate mother, she grows emotionally in ways that she wouldn't have been able to grow without such "crucial" experience. I thought her changes were believable and true to her character. I also felt that the other characters' responses, mostly through sparkling dialogue, were true to their basic "natures," and that Ms. Whittington did a fine job portraying a place she knows well from her youth, thus creating believable and, for me, lovable characters.
They're not characters who "intellectualize." They're not morose. They're "simple" folk who have their individual dreams. Vada Faith's dream: "to be a somebody besides the high school beauty queen whose mother ran off and left her and her sister." She got more than she bargained for when she decided, partly for money, to be a surrogate mother.
A serious premise, but one peppered with wit and dry humor from the mouths of the characters, flawed human beings who for a time struggle with powerful and life-defining emotions. Because of the struggles, at the end of this journey they have more insights into themselves and others than they had at the beginning.
OR
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