A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty (2012) (edit title/settings)

• Rated 4 stars

“I was pretty sure I'd like this book before I even started it. I've yet to read a Joshiliyn Jackson novel that I haven't liked. I was right.
The Slocumb women are victims of a fifteen-year curse. First Ginny got pregnant at fifteen, giving birth to Liza. Fifteen years later, Liza becomes pregnant, too. Now fourteen-year-old Mosey is so paranoid about becoming pregnant (she is a virgin) that she takes pregnancy tests constantly- just to remind herself that everything is ok- that she is not a victim to the Slocumb curse.
Liza has suffered a stroke which has left her unable to speak and partially paralyzed. When local handyman Tyler Baines cuts down the willow tree in the Slocumb's back yard to make room for the pool Liza needs for therapy, he makes a horrifying discovery- an infant buried in a small chest beneath the tree. Liza becomes distraught, uttering some of the only words she still knows- "My baby!" But if the baby beneath the tree is Liza's, who is Mosey?
This is a hard-to-put-down story of three women facing the world head on against all odds. It is a story of love and redemption. Joshilyn Jackson keeps you guessing right up to the final page.

Read this book if...
*you love southern fiction
*you love stories of mothers and daughters
*you love a good mystery”

• Rated 3 stars

“A captivating story about relationships, trials, triumphs and finding joy in what life hands you. The 3 Slocumb women have been handed raw deals in life, but they keep trying to overcome the hands they were dealt. The book is told from the perspective of each of the women in alternating chapters. Jackson is amazing at keeping the different tones: the teenager, the experienced woman, the struggling. The relationships in this book are strong, and make it an enjoyable read. A small mystery makes you want to keep turning pages. Will read more of this author!”

• Rated 4 stars

“A novel about a family consisting of three generations of women overcoming adversity and trials in life. Story alternates each chapter from a different women/girls point of view. Involves the world around them good and bad. Interesting characters in a small town environment. While all three are very different in their own way they are all strong. I enjoyed it. Easy read.”

• Rated 5 stars

“Excellent”

• Rated 5 stars

“Barbara M said: 5 stars

I've enjoyed the wonderful fiction of Joshilyn Jackson ever since I read gods in Alabama. Jackson has a unique voice and her stories grab you from the first page, the first paragraph, the first sentence. "My daughter, Liza, put her heart in a silver box and buried it under the willow tree in our backyard. . . . It was foolish. There's no way to hide things underground in Mississippi . . . I can't blame Liza though. . . After all, I'm the damn fool who went and dug it up."

The story is written with alternating chapters between Big (yes, that is her name in the story), Liza (Big's daughter), and Mosey (Liza's daughter). Big explains that this is a bad year. Every 15 years is a troubling one for her little family. She gave birth to Liza when she was 15 and then, when Liza was 15 (and Big was 30) Mosey was born. Now Big is 45, Liza 30, and Mosey 14 going on 15. Things have started to be troubling. Each of the three narrators are somewhat unreliable but telling it in alternating chapters, the story and the secrets unfold.

The story is a lot about family relationships with some mystery and even adventure. The story unfolds with lots of tension. The characters are wonderful, typical of Jackson. When the story seems to involve a swimming pool in the beginning, I thought it might be somewhat in the vein of the The Girl Who Stopped Swimming but it wasn't at all. I hated putting the book down and couldn't wait until I had the opportunity to pick it up again. These are characters that will stay with me. ”

• Rated 4 stars

“Story Description:

Grand Central Publishing|September 25, 2012|Trade Paperback|ISBN: 978-0-58236-0

A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty is a powerful saga of three generations of women, plagued by hardships and torn by a devastating secret, yet inextricably joined by the bonds of family. Fifteen-year-old Mosey Slocumb – spirited, sassy, and on the cusp of womanhood – is shaken when a small grave is unearthed in the backyard, and determined to figure out why it’s there. Liza, her stroke-ravaged mother, is haunted by choices she made as a teenager. But it is Ginny, Mosey’s strong and big-hearted grandmother, whose maternal love brands together the strands of the women’s shared past – and who will stop at nothing to defend their future.

My Review:

This is my first Joshilyn Jackson novel and I wasn’t disappointed. Her writing is simply magical and she has a way with words that make you feel even more endeared to the story.

In A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty, trouble visits itself every fifteen years upon three generations of Slocumb women. The matriarch of the family, Ginny, is forty-five –years-old and gave birth to her daughter, Liza, at age fifteen. Liza, at age fifteen begat her daughter, Mosey, and now that Mosey is at that mysterious, trouble-ridden number of “fifteen” years of age, Ginny knows problems are arising. After all “something” bad happens every fifteen years and it won’t be good.

The personalities of the three Slocumb women are diverse and shaped through years of desperate lives and very hard times. Liza had a stroke at age thirty and at age forty-five is still struggling to fight her way back to some sort of normalcy.

Now that, Mosey, has turned fifteen, Ginny, is very worried that she will repeat the mistakes in her life that both she and her mother did. On the other hand, Mosey, is determined and committed to NOT repeat those same mistakes.

The story is told in all three voices through alternating chapters. You’re so glued to each woman’s story that it makes you wish you had a whole book on each of their lives. I was so enamoured with these three women that I wished I could befriend them all! A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty is definitely the next book you should be reading. Well-done Ms. Jackson, I’ll be ordering the rest of your novels!!
”

• Rated 5 stars

“I've enjoyed the wonderful fiction of Joshilyn Jackson ever since I read gods in Alabama. Jackson has a unique voice and her stories grab you from the first page, the first paragraph, the first sentence. "My daughter, Liza, put her heart in a silver box and buried it under the willow tree in our backyard. . . . It was foolish. There's no way to hide things underground in Mississippi . . . I can't blame Liza though. . . After all, I'm the damn fool who went and dug it up."

The story is written with alternating chapters between Big (yes, that is her name in the story), Liza (Big's daughter), and Mosey (Liza's daughter). Big explains that this is a bad year. Every 15 years is a troubling one for her little family. She gave birth to Liza when she was 15 and then, when Liza was 15 (and Big was 30) Mosey was born. Now Big is 45, Liza 30, and Mosey 14 going on 15. Things have started to be troubling. Each of the three narrators are somewhat unreliable but telling it in alternating chapters, the story and the secrets unfold.

The story is a lot about family relationships with some mystery and even adventure. The story unfolds with lots of tension. The characters are wonderful, typical of Jackson. When the story seems to involve a swimming pool in the beginning, I thought it might be somewhat in the vein of the The Girl Who Stopped Swimming but it wasn't at all. I hated putting the book down and couldn't wait until I had the opportunity to pick it up again. ”

• Rated 3 stars

“For some reason I wasn't too impressed”

• Rated 5 stars

“I really enjoyed this book. Some parts were predictable, but most of it was one surprise after another for me. I find myself missing the characters now that I have finished the book.”

• Rated 0 stars

“Surprisingly engaged by Joshilyn's reading of her novel - told from the perspective of a grandmother at age 45, mom at 30 and daughter at 15. That's right - two teenage moms and now they're worried about the youngest. Listening on Audible.”