Davidia Jones’s voice takes us through her difficult life living with her mean and brutal mother in a small town called Glass, Mississippi.  She is a constant victim of bullying through middle school and high school, but still manages to fall head over heels in love with a gorgeous football player, who is new at school.  This unrequited love, along with her favorite Molly Ringwald films are the things that lull her through those harsh moments at school, until an insensitive prank drives Davidia to Hollywood where her life takes more dips and dives than even she could imagine.

32 Candles was an excellent five-star surprise for me!  I wasn’t sure what to expect but it has everything going for it.  The fact that it has a bit of the 80s culture, hence 16 Candles, The Breakfast Club, and company is an A plus.  It’s refreshing to read a book that has eighties culture for a change and yes it’s my generation.  I graduated from high school in 1984 and I could hear the Thompson Twins banging in the background.  This story will lift your spirits and definitely drive you to look for the silver lining in every black cloud.

Ernessa T. Carter has given Davidia a warm, fluid, sensitive, real voice that we follow on bated breath.  It’s a little hard to put down once you get into it.  Honestly, the first twenty to thirty pages may seem slow, but you will soon begin to get wound up in Davidia’s life and care about her.  She’s vulnerable, sensitive, intelligent, and talented.  32 Candles has been highly acclaimed by critics, “Carter winds up this disarmingly moving tale with not one but many surprises, in which both Davie and you will win.”——Essence and “First there was Stella and she got her groove back, then there was Bridget Jones and she managed to find her love despite her own lovable neuroses.  Now there is Davie Jones.  32 Candles, at last, is the answer to the question ‘What should I read next?'”—–Erica KENNEDY, author of Feminista and Bling

Ernessa T. Carter is a graduate from Smith College and Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania with a Masters in Fine Arts.  She has worked as a radio journalist, a music teacher, and as an ESL teacher in Japan.  Not to mention she is a retired L.A. Derby Doll (roller derby).  32 Candles is her first novel, but Carter co-wrote a natural hair book with Nikki Walton (founder of the exceedingly popular natural hair site www.curlynikki.com ) called Better Than Good Hair:  The Curly Girl Guide to Healthy, Gorgeous Natural Hair.  Carter blogs and is the editor in chief of  fierceandnerdy.com .  She has just finished rewriting her second novel and non-fiction novel, so we’ll have to keep a look out for their release dates.  Hope one of the two or both will be coming out soon.  She is also expecting twin girls.  She wrote a very emotional, positive post about fertility treatment and getting pregnant.   Check it all out on fierceandnerdy.com!

A metaphor is like a simile.

                            ——–Author Unknown