Book #26 The Hot Fudge Sundae Blues

Hot Fudge Sundae Blues: A Novel by Bev Marshall


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Thirteen year old Layla Jay's mother Frieda is widowed and penniless, and the two of them live with with her grandparents.  Layla Jay's grandmother is strict and very religious while her grandfather cusses and never goes to church. Frieda doesn't get along with her mother, smokes, drinks, dresses provocatively, and has a string of boyfriends that both Layla Jay and her mother disapprove of.  Then the handsome revival preacher shows up and Frieda marries him much to everyone's dismay.  Layla Jay's life takes a definite turn for the worse.  Eventually Layla Jay has to make some life-changing decisions.   I really enjoyed this coming-of-age novel.  Layla Jay is quite believable as a conflicted teenager.  She loves her grandparents and her mother, and she desperately wants to make things right with her God.  Yet life constantly puts her in difficult places and forces her to make some choices she would rather not make.  Layla Jay somehow manages to stay true to her core self and to her family.

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