I Wish I Had a Red Dress

Rating:
Summary: Red Dresses for Free Women
Review: This is a great story, a must read for women of a certain age. There's a peace to it, even as the characters work through their individual problems. In Tomika, Joyce and the Smitherman twins, Cleage creates an attainable ideal. Can you imagine how rich our lives would be if every black woman had close, honest friends from two different generations? The Smitherman twins touched my heart, especially when Cleage used one of them to show that, whether you're 16 or 86, a broken heart is a broken heart. What a reasurring, scary thought.

Now, about the Free Woman. I'm not sure that I got it. Sister, Joyce's best friend, seemed completely free. She had enough peace and inner security to allow her husband, Bill and their friend, Nate to grow at their own pace and to disagree with her. I realize that Joyce was on a journey, but I didn't understand the source of her anger toward Bill and especially toward Nate. Joyce's late husband was a wonderful man, so she didn't have the emotional baggage of a failed relationship weighing her down. Certainly a Free Woman has to get angry sometimes, or she won't stay free for long. But why heap that anger on a good man who either doesn't understand you or dares to disagree with you? Also, I couldn't figure out when a man is supposed to come to the aid of a Free Woman and when he should leave her to her own devices. I guess that I've got some self-freeing to do.

Thank you, Pearl Cleage, for creating good literature. I Wish I Had A Red Dress is intelligent, entertaining and inspiring.

Rating:
Summary: Love ME tenderly
Review: A beautiful love story for the mature adults. Feel the inspiration of finding love again!

Rating:
Summary: I Wish I Had a Red Dress
Review: Joyce Mitchell's life can be described with one word - tragedy. After the loss of several family members to various horrible circumstances including her husband Mitch, she lives in a virtual state of mourning. She never allows herself to accept the possibility of life bringing her any true happiness which shows in everything down to her wardrobe that is always black. The only fulfillment she has in her life are a few friendships she maintains with the local minister and an elderly pair of sisters and her commitment to the Sewing Circus.

As founder of the Sewing Circus, Joyce provides a valuable community resource for young women by providing job training, counseling, day care and a sense of hope for a better future. The Circus is also a haven for many women suffering from issues, heartache, and domestic abuse. Joyce's compassion allows her to get deeply involved in the personal lives of many girls which ultimately puts her life in grave danger.

When Nate, the new vice principal of the local high school moves to town and introduced to Joyce, she is struck with feelings of a sexual nature that she thought were buried alongside her husband. The undeniable mutual attraction between the two is stifled by the escalating violence at the Circus. When a boyfriend of one of the young mothers at the Circus shows up looking to continue his campaign of abuse the entire community is turned upside down in terror.

Author Pearl Cleage uses the symbolism of Joyce's refusal to wear any color other than black and her deep longing to wear a red dress to highlight the societal constraints preventing her from becoming a "Twenty first Century Woman". Cleage clearly writes from a woman's perspective and she does it with such flair that I would recommend this book to men as well as women.

"I Wish I Had a Red Dress" is a well written, solid story with a main character readers long to see let go and change her life. I enjoyed this novel enough to give it 3.

Rating:
Summary: Poignant
Review: Pearl Cleage has once again poured her heart and soul into a novel by a women, for a woman. This is definatly a book that will capture the heart of it's reader, and instill a spark of hope. The beauty of this book, is all the events that take place are things that can and do happen in real life. This is the follow up to "What looks like Crazy on an Ordinary Day" and I must say this is by far even better. I found it to be moving, and not as flaky as most of the books I have been finding. I am glad I looked this book up at the library.

Most novels that women write about the issues that they go through are trashed, and spread a bad word about. But with this book I will pass it on, and with pride. The joys and pains of the characters and of course Idlewild has become a home in so many others hearts because of it's ability to capture truth.

I reccomend this book to male and female;s of all race, denominations, and creeds. This is definatly something that will become spellbinding.

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Rating:
Summary: I Wish I Had a Red Dress
Review: This book is great. I could not stop turning the pages. It is exicting, heart-stopping, funny, and believeable. There are no strings pulling you along in this book. I give the highest rating, and I recommend this book to anyone that enjoys great writing. I did not think Pearl Cleage could top herself after writing What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day, but she did.

Rating:
Summary: I wish Ava narrated this story.
Review: Sometimes sequels are so difficult, especially when the first act was so great. This sequel has lots of details that were not given in "What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day". There are also different issues tackled this time. Nevertheless, the sassy voice of Joyce is no match for the jazzy, hilarious voice of Ava.

Joyce makes you laugh too... as if living in Idlewild isn't funny enough:-). This time, she brings along amusing friends, neighbors and freedwomen who spice up the pages of this sequel. On our second trip to this small town, we also find more love. "I Wish I Had a Red Dress" is a unique love story because it reverberates the essence of love for self, family, friends, community, and a tall, dark, secure, handsome man!

Rating:
Summary: What a pearl!
Review: Pearl Cleage has done it again; I don't know how many times over. I really appreciated "What Looks Like..." and now I didn't even want "I Wish..." to end. Now being the cynic that I am, I was really looking for something that would cause me to want to give this novel less than a five, but I found absolutely nothing. First off, Cleage has given us breath with her character Joyce. No she doesn't fit the African American woman stereotypes found in so many other novels, but she is one hell of a character. Cleage has shown so many positives about her and African American culture. We are not static, but very dynamic. Otherwise literarily I thought that language was beautiful-it was at times high-but these are some smart folks. And who couldn't appreciate Sister, even though she was the most eccentric minister that I have ever heard off (but we love her)-and so is her very intelligent husband, Bill. On another note Cleage does a superburb job of getting into other character's lives without overdoing it. It's so polished that it never lends itself to useless subplots. Now I'll be candid-I didn't so much dig the feminism thing-not that it was bad, but it was overdone and I don't remember it being that big in "What..." Nonetheless I could appreciate the small chapters because they lent themselves to giving the reader a feeling of going on Joyce's day-to-day mission and its overall importance in the life of The Sewing Circus. What can I say? Thanks Pearl, you've have avoided all the cliches that sometimes define contemporary African American fiction a la overdone sex scenes (that have nothing to do with the story and is really the writers attempt to sell books), but less name dropping would help although you miracously make it work a la Dorothy Dandridge, and no nonsense scenes. Thanks!

Rating:
Summary: i wish i had a better book
Review: After reading Pearl Cledge's first book I was very excited when I received her second book. I couldn't figure out what was missing, it was taking me so long to finish the book. One day I left it at home, and I realized I just didn't care about the characters. The main character was unrealistic, and the romance never took off. I was intrested in some of the minor characters, but unfortunatuly, they weren't the focus of the book.

Rating:
Summary: A Testimony to Faith and Love
Review: I've been a fan of Pearl Cleage for many years. Her collection of essays, MAD AT MILES, is one of my favorite books of all time. I read RED DRESS during a sad period, having recently gone through a bad breakup. I sobbed and cried my way through the book because of its beautiful writing, emotion, faith, joy and triumph of black folks. Strong loving black men and women. My heart broke all over again cause, boy did I want myself a tall, fine, good man like Nate. Well it's only a story, I told myself and gave it to all my sister friends to read cause it was so wonderful. Ha! Four months later, a tall, fine good man walked boldly into my life. Thank you, Sister Pearl, for reminding us that there are wonderful good men out there and about the power of black love!!!

Rating:
Summary: Positive Role Models
Review: This book was great. I enjoyed reading about the positive male characters in the book who were deeply concerned about the young males. The story line did not center completely on disfunction within the family structures in America today.