Mama Day in Into the Forest

Jun 30, 2017 Margaret rated it liked it

Shelves: aoc, contemporary-fantasy, fairytale-myth-inspired

This was a really mixed read for me. On the one hand, Naylor writes a wonderful, hilarious character in Mama Day, a 90-year-old respected healer on the small Georgia island she lives on. She and her sister Abigail carry a sorrowful history between them, but manage a productivity that rivals people half their age--and with a lot of humor.

And then there's Cocoa/Ophelia, Abigail's granddaughter, and her beau George. Cocoa and George live in New York City, and could not be more stereotyped and borin ...more

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Jul 08, 2017 Melanti rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: e-book, group-reads, 2017

I loved Mama Day, Abigail and the island in general. But, I didn't like George and found Cocoa absolutely loathsome. I already hated her and then she did the thing with the vase. Not acceptable. At all. If I were George, I would have been on the phone with the nearest divorce lawyer.

I don't necessarily need to like the main character to like a book, but when I find them utterly appalling and I'm supposed to like them, that's a big, big problem for me.

I know my antipathy was bad when I started ch ...more

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Nov 16, 2017 Leah rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: into-the-forest-2017

"My side. He don't listen to my side. She don't listen to my side. Just like that chicken coop, everything got four sides: his side, her side, an outside, and an inside. All of it is the truth."

Ophelia Day, who goes by Cocoa, is a difficult woman and she knows it. She's small town at heart, born and raised on the island of Willow Springs, which is located off the coasts of, but not belonging to, South Carolina and Georgia. An island with a proud Black heritage and mysterious origins.

Cocoa leaves ...more

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