Review by Booklist Review
Godiva Blue thinks she has it made. Her day job as a janitor at the local school gives her time to pursue her true passion: art. She also believes that she and her teenage daughter, Dylan, have the perfect relationship. However, Dylan thinks otherwise and runs away from home in search of her father, a man she knows only through a picture on a wanted poster she found hidden in Godiva's things. The novel's title refers to a game Godiva and her friends played back in her hippie days, a sophisticated version of 20 questions in which a person has to guess the identity of someone after being given just his or her initials. The game is a metaphor for the whole novel, in which the characters circle around each other, trying to guess at, relate to, and understand each other. The book relies on a few cliches, and the conflict is resolved far too neatly, but otherwise this is a lively and well-written first novel. --Kristine Huntley
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
The fertile depths of mother-daughter relationships are plumbed with sparkling humor and sharp-edged wisdom in Nelson's impressive debut. The year is 1986, and the wonderfully named Godiva BlueÄne Judy BlitchÄa product of the '60s, is living with her proverbial love-child, 15-year-old Dylan, on the Gulf coast of Florida, where she has created an unconventional lifestyle as a funky single mom who supports her art and her child by working as a janitor at the local elementary school. Nelson captures the sense of time-warp felt by '60s activists who became alienated adults in what they saw as the spiritually moribund '80s. She also skillfully underscores the irony that mothers who came of age in a revolutionary generation still harbor the conventional desire to protect their children, no matter how rebellious they may have been in their own adolescence. Godiva's life is thus up-ended when Dylan discovers an FBI wanted poster in her mother's belongings, instantly recognizes the man as her father and, unbeknownst to Godiva, sets out by herself to look for him. Although Dylan comes off sounding more like a college student than a 15-year-old, her journey to find her father is filled with self-revelation and experiences that showcase the trusting innocence of youth as well as the particular vulnerabilities of a teenager alone in the world. Only when Godiva and Dylan are apart from one another do they come to understand and appreciate the depth of their attachment. Nelson takes them each on an emotional voyage that ultimately strengthens the bond between mother and daughter. Agent, Alice Martell. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Artist Godiva Blue (ne Judy Blitch), a college student during the Vietnam War, had a brief love affair with a fellow protester, which resulted in the birth of a daughter, Dylan. When the novel opens, the two live in the tiny town of Esmerelda, FL, where Godiva works as the school's janitor and adolescent Dylan yearns for a more normal upbringing. When Dylan finds a copy of a "most wanted" poster hidden among her mother's possessions and recognizes her father, she decides to track him down. The major problem with this first novel is that Nelson can't quite make up her mind whether the plot centers on a child's search for her father or the generation gap between a hippie mother and her more conservative daughter. In addition, Nelson complicates the novel with too many subplots. Only public libraries with large fiction collections or an interest in first novels should consider.--Nancy Pearl, Washington Ctr. for the Book, Seattle (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Booklist Review
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Review by Library Journal Review
