[.ca] What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day (ISBN 038079487X)

From Amazon.com:
Oprah Book Club® Selection, September 1998: What makes Pearl Cleage's novel so damned enjoyable? At first glance, after all, What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day seems pretty heavy going: HIV, suicide, sudden infant death syndrome, and drunk driving all figure prominently in the lives of narrator Ava Johnson and her older sister Joyce. It isn't long before crack addiction, domestic violence, and unwed motherhood have joined the list--so, where's the pleasure? The answer lies in the sharp and funny attitude Cleage brings to her depiction of one African American community in the troubled '90s. Ava Johnson, for example, might be HIV-positive, but she's refreshingly forthright about it: "Most of us got it from the boys. Which is, when you think about it, a pretty good argument for cutting men loose, but if I could work up a strong physical reaction to women, I would already be having sex with them. I'm not knocking it. I'm just saying I can't be a witness. Too many titties in one place to suit me." Ada has spent the last 10 years living in Atlanta. When she discovers she's infected, she sells her hairdressing business and heads back to her childhood home of Idlewild, Michigan, to spend the summer with her recently widowed sister before moving on to San Francisco. Once there, however, she finds herself embroiled in big-city problems--drugs, violence, teen pregnancy, and an abandoned crack-addicted baby, to name just a few--in a small-town setting. Ava also meets Eddie Jefferson, a man with a past who just might change her mind about the imprudence of falling in love. In less assured hands, such a catalog of disasters would make for maudlin, melodramatic reading indeed. But Cleage, an accomplished playwright, has a way both with characters and with language that lifts this tale above its movie-of-the-week tendencies. In Ava she has created a character who not only effortlessly carries the weight of the story but also provides entertaining commentary on African American life as she goes. Discussing the insular nature of the black community in Atlanta, she recalls, "I'd walk into a reception room and there'd be a room full of brothers, power-brokering their asses off, and I'd realize I'd seen them all naked. I'd watch them striding around, talking to each other in those phony-ass voices men use when they want to make it clear they got juice, and it was so depressing, all I'd want to do was go home and get drunk." Later, she describes the preacher's wife's hair as "pressed and hot-curled within an inch of its life.... Hardly anybody asks for that kind of hard press anymore. Sister seems to have missed the moment when we decided it was okay for the hair to move." As the trials and tribulations pile on, the experiences of Cleage's characters prove to be universal: death, love, second chances. Ava's acerbic, smart-mouthed narrative keeps the story buoyant; by the time this endearingly imperfect heroine and her cohorts have negotiated the rocky road to a happy ending, readers will be sorry to see her go, even as they wish her well. --Alix Wilber

You've Got To Be Kidding:
391 reviews and this book averages 4 stars??? Give me a break. The story is flat, predictable, and full of cliches. The way in which the 3 main characters are written just doesn't seem real, and that is why I found it hard to care about what happens to them. So, with only 50 pages left to the end, I put it down. Don't waste your money because this book is highly over-rated.

Sister No Matter What the price........:
Ava and Joyce this a pair that I won't forget. This book has many twist and turns because one the sisters had to endure alot of issues such as losing their parents at an early age, AIDS, losing a spouse, and falling in love again renewing their spirts together from a community that was supposed to be the black Mecca turned out to be a blessing in disguise for the both of them. By the end of the book you will be saying go girl in one breathe and in another saying God DON'T LIKE UGLY so be careful what you wish on others (...)

Looks Like Crazy.... A MUST read:
Ava Johnson was the typical everyday woman until a trip to the doctors changed her life; she was diagnosed with AIDS. As a result of all of the stress that comes with living in a big city (Atlanta) and living with AIDS, Ava decides to make a pit stop at her sister's home, while on her way to move to San Francisco. However, once in Idlewood, Michigan, at her sister, Joyce's, everything changes. This book tells about the summer from Ava's point of view. At first, it seems like a pretty harsh book, with AIDS, teen pregnancy, suicide, drug and alcohol abuse and domestic violence. However, the way Cleage ties all of these realities together makes the book even more eventful. Her use of first person allows you, as the reader, to feel as though the book is talking directly to you. Overall, the book is a great example of real life turned into a fiction novel that is a must read for everyone.

Great!:
I didn't know whether to laugh or cry reading this book, so I did a little of both. At times witty and urbane, the writing turns dark and foreboding the next, but not in a bad way. I'm reminded of McCrae's "Bark of the Dogwood" or some of Vonnegut's novels in the way that Cleage handles her material. A bit rough at times, this book is nevertheless worth every cent. Never preachy, but rather informative and clever, it's nothing but enjoyable.

A Look In The Mirror:
I couldn't help noticing that one reviewer commented "What unnevered me about some of the reviews is the bad grammar . . ." and went on to say "the amount of people who wrote in . . ." Grammatically correct verbiage is, "the number of people". Amount infers weight; number infers an actual count.