What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day (Oprah's Book Club)

by Pearl Cleage

Paperback, 1998

Status

Available

Call number

813.54

Genres

General Fiction

All Topics

Fiction

Collection

Your library

Publication

Harper Paperbacks (1998), Paperback, 256 pages

Description

After a decade of elegant pleasures and luxe living with the Atlanta brothers and sisters with the best clothes and biggest dreams, Ava Johnson has temporarily returned home to Idlewild--her fabulous career and power plans smashed to bits by cold reality. But what she imagines to be the end is, instead, a beginning. Because, in the ten-plus years since Ava left, all the problems of the big city have come to roost in the sleepy North Michigan community whose ordinariness once drove her away; and she cannot turn her back on friends and family who sorely need her in the face of impending trouble and tragedy. Besides which, that one unthinkable, unmistakable thing is now happening to her: Ava Johnson is falling in love. Acclaimed playwright, essayist, New York Times bestselling author, and columnist Pearl Cleage has created a world rich in character, human drama, and deep, compassionate understanding, in a remarkable novel that sizzles with sensuality, hums with gritty truth, and sings and crackles with life-affirming energy.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member libmhleigh

This is a different book from others I nave read (it is only this year that I began reading many contemporary novels). I found it to be an interesting, mostly fast moving and enjoyable book. I came to be interested in the issues the different characters had and their ways of handling the situations

they found themselves confronted with.

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LibraryThing member ThatsFresh

! I recently finished “What Looks Like Crazy…On An Ordinary Day” by Pearl Cleage. It was about an African-American woman who has HIV and decided to spend the summer with her sister in the country before moving to San Francisco. She quickly falls in love with the overly sensitive/calm/perfect

Eddie. Her sister Joyce runs a sex education group for girls (all of which have babies of their own), but it gets shut down by the crazed Reverend’s wife. Though the story is written from a different point of view and brings insight into the world of having HIV, the story seems to drift from it’s original intention half way through the book. It gets to be less about her battle with HIV and educating young girls, and more about her perfect love life with Eddie. The author must’ve been deep in love when she wrote this book since you can’t get through a page without hearing about love love love, for a spouse, a boyfriend or a baby. This book is an Oprah Book Club Book from back in the early 90’s. Nowadays, I don’t believe it would even be mentioned by Oprah, but I’m sure back in the 90’s this was much more controversial and brought a lot of new light on to a subject that was so taboo. If you were to read this book now, you could find it a little annoying and unrealistic, but if you don’t mind one dimensional characters and non-stop love, then go pick up your very own copy, located in the bargain bin.

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LibraryThing member Jaylabelle

A short, fun read, with genuine characters, and some insight into what it is like to be a young successful female entrepreneur who's tested positive for HIV, and has the opportunity to re-examine her priorities.

LibraryThing member readingrat

A well-written novel about a woman learning to live with the fact of being HIV positive.

LibraryThing member drizzlegirl

I love this book, definately amoung my all-time favorites!! Beautifully written, this book is a page turner from beginning to end! I laughed and cried, but by then end it just felt whole.

LibraryThing member MrsMariaUWG

The main character runs to a small town after being outcast because of her HIV status. She soon learns to accept herself and allows others to love and accept her too.

LibraryThing member whitewavedarling

A touching and humorous book, this is one of those novels that reminds you to look at even the most serious situations with a bit of humor and optimism. The book's characters are believable and perfectly written, and Cleage's writing is graceful and smart. So much is covered in this fast read, and

it is covered beautifully. My one criticism is that it ends too quickly, and perhaps a bit too easily, but the read is wonderful and well worth the while regardless. Absolutely recommended.

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LibraryThing member mahallett

chick lit for sure. ending a very sudden wrap-up--planning for a sequel? good story, ava and joyce pretty realistic but other characters pretty one-dimensional---just serving their purpose in the novel.

LibraryThing member berthashaver

A delightful story of a woman who has hiv falling in love, raising a child, helping her sister and finally living her life.

LibraryThing member BraveNewBks

Read this because of the title. It was okay, a moderately good chick-lit read with a little more tearjerking than average.

LibraryThing member greeniezona

This book was 100% on my radar because of its inclusion on a couple of lists on listchallenges.com. Then when I saw it at a library sale on our ASTC trip to Tampa (for ridiculously cheap), I had to buy it. I had no idea (or had forgotten) going in that it takes place almost entirely in Idlewild,

Michigan -- a small town not so very far from where I had lived before that we have driven through a dozen times. This unexpected connection endeared it to me.

Though I think I would have loved this book anyway. This book is so full of compassion, yet unflinching about the challenges of small town life. Characters are dealing with major health problems, grief, criminal pasts, and yet are so gentle with each other in providing space for all to grow.

Not that everyone in this book is gentle and compassionate. There are some real heels here. But in the end, we're given chances to understand them all, and why they've made the choices they've made -- even if we strongly condemn those choices.

I really loved this, and was grateful for the odd path that put it in my way.

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