As Hot as It Was You Ought to Thank Me: A Novel
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Product Description
Nanci Kincaid's As Hot As It Was You Ought to Thank Me is the touchingly honest story of Berry Jackson, a young teenager growing up Pinetta, Florida, home to two churches, a school, and a gas station.Berry spends her days soaking up the lives of her parents, Ford and Ruthie, her brothers Sowell and Wade, and an amusing array of neighbors that include a wayward preacher, a shotgun toting father of six, and the town's (relatively) wealthy businessman. As Berry navigates her way through young adulthood, she unearths a number of truths and lies that will ultimately serve as the foundation for her sense of self. ("It was not really that I longed to be pretty so bad, I swear, it was that I longed to be real. In Pinetta it seemed like being pretty was the one thing guaranteed to make a girl real.")The book starts off slowly, and some readers may find themselves losing interest in Kincaid's descriptions of Pinetta's long, hot summer days and their inhabitants. However, once the town is hit by a powerful tornado and Berry's father disappears with the town beauty, the pace picks up and readers are rewarded for their perserverance with an exciting tale of mystery and intrigue. The plot thickens when a chain gang rolls into town to help rebuild the roads and the school, and a certain convict steals the heart of Berry and the rest of the townsfolk.Even after his awful crime is revealed, the people of Pinetta can't help but keep a place for him in their hearts.Kincaid does a commendable job of getting inside 13-year-old Berry's 13-year-old and showing us how no experience is ever truly black or white. In fact, Kincaid is so talented that by the end of the novel, while allegiances may have shifted a bit one way or another, readers will have a hard time saying goodbye to Berry and her supporting cast of memorable characters. --Gisele Toueg
Spotlight Customer Reviews:
Summary:
Southern Lit at its best.
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Comment:
This is the kind of book that I never want to end. Southern writing at its best. Miss Kincaid definately knows her southern people and southern humor. The characters in this wonderful book will stay with me for a long time. Berry is precious. I wanted to be her friend & help her along the difficult paths that she had to take. Please more like this Ms. kincaid.
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Summary:
I HAVEN'T MET A NANCI KINCAID BOOK I HAVEN'T LIKED YET !!!!
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Comment:
This author certainly knows her stuff! This is one of the best books ever -- Berry and her family have a crazy cast of characters as their neighbors in this half-horse town.
I was hooked on the first page. The story moves, is continually interesting, and FUNNY. This is one of those books that you can't put down and when you MUST put it down, you can't stop thinking about it. Then, you get your housework done and go right back to it!
You can feel the sweat on your own skin, hear the bugs buzzing in your ears, and ride out a hurricane with the characters. The characters are wonderful, each and every one of them.
Ms. Kincaid has a gift and you should open up this book and treat it like a present that has been handed to you on a silver platter. Enjoy it, spread the word, pass it on.
Berry would thank you!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks -- Pam
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Summary:
Southern Lit as it should be
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Comment:
I absolutely loved this book!
I used to read a lot of Southern Lit, but too many authors today seem to think that being from the South and putting race in the book somewhere (preferably in a heavy-handed way) makes their books "Southern". In my opinion, Lewis Nordan is one of the few today who do it right. Now I have to add Nanci Kincaid to that list.
This book, is a classic example of the genre. The characters could have fallen straight out of a Welty work. Further, the situations in the small town of Pinetta rang true to me. I had no trouble picturing any of the events happening in the small Southern town I grew up in -- right down to the polite competition between the Baptists and the Methodists. Ms. Kincaid never really played that up, but anyone who grew up in a town like mine could easily identify.
Finally, the book was just plain well written. I was hooked right from the beginning -- a beautiful description of the constant, yet fruitless, quest to find a cool spot in a Southern summer. From there it just got better.
I won't claim that it's another "Mockingbird", but if you like the classic Southern Lit of Welty, Capote, or McCullers I think you'll enjoy this one as well.
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Summary:
As Hot as it was, you should thank me
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Comment:
Amazing. Wonderful. Read it.
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Summary:
One of the best books of 2005.
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Comment:
Flawed? Aren't we all.
All of the books I've read this year have flaws, though some are national prize contenders. I haven't heard this book mentioned as a contender, but for me it is thus far the year's most engaging novel.
Some books I admire for their artful qualities even though they don't engage me emotionally, like good dancers you dance with and admire, even though you could never fall in love with them.
Some of them are like an unsatisfactory blind date, books that might make a good read for someone else, but they are not for you.
Once in a blue moon a book comes along that you really fall in love with, that makes you care about the characters and what happens to them. This is such a book for me. It may or may not be for you.
The writing is beautiful, filled with southern humor and insights and things that ring true. The only thing I wished for is that I had it in hardcover, but perhaps that is also part of the book's simple charm here. A casual looking and unpretentious trade paperback with easy to read print and an author's afterward that explains the history behind it. Easy to open, easy to read, easy to love.
It is multilayered--that is to say, the author adroitly uses figurative language, symbolism, and nuances to convey her ideas to those to who can see them. But it is not necessary to see these things to adore this truely rendered narrative voice that trumps any plot flaws that anyone might see in it. Love is like that. And I will never forget this one.
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