Miss Hazel and the Rosa Parks League by Jonathan Odell

This is one of those hard-to-write-a-review-for books. The story itself would take forever and a day to summarize. There's a lot going on. There's all the white women--mostly related to the Senator--and their maids, African-American women of the south. Did I mention this is the sixties? So there's a lot of racial tension. While Rosa Parks is doing her thing, these maids are doing theirs: meeting up in a "crazy" white lady's house to gossip and more. There's voting rights issue, a missing white woman, a man wrongfully accused, a boy thought dead, an evil sheriff, and really, a LOT of really nasty characters.

On top of that there's a theme/moral about motherhood. So many women have kids right there in front of them yet for whatever reason, they fail to be mothers.

While other women deal with loss.

In this book the two come together amid the other stuff.

It's extremely well written though I did not like the poor grammar. Yes, I get this is how people spoke, but that doesn't mean I like to read it. "I swan?" Urgh.

I enjoyed the tale for the most part, but it's way too long and contains too much. There was a point I got to when Levi began all his ranting about God and stuff that I just began to skip large chunks. I'd just had enough and it was time to get to the conclusion. Funny thing is though, that's the point the book finally began to get exciting, when stuff really began to happen. But like I said, I'd had enough. I'd read over 300 pages at that point and it was beginning to lose me.

The characters, at least the main heroines, grow and change for the better as the tale comes to a close though. And the maids' conversations were quite funny and made me smile. The little boy, however, I had a hard time with his bits as he deals with death. I saw the point, but that particular side issue doesn't appeal to me. I also grew increasingly frustrated with the Senator and his "boys", how racist they were and how everyone else became racist too, just to fit in. Nothing new there, but we mustn't forget history.

I can say with all honesty that I've never read a story line like this before. The book is truly unique and that's not easy to do nowadays, what with everyone writing the same thing, it seems. And I already mentioned the writing is excellent. Yet as I closed this book--finally!--I can't say it left anything with me.

I received this via Shelf Awareness.