The Sweetest Hallelujah - Book Review!

Since I graduated from Aquinas I've been a part of a book club with my mom, my sister and a couple friends.  It has been a great way to get together with everyone and also to find new books to read!  I've read books that I never would have picked up before and found some new favorites!  The other day I finished our most recent book and I thought it would be fun to do a book review of it (plus, I finished the book way early, so this will be a good way to remember what I thought of it :))  I always like to ready about new books, so I'm guessing some of you do, too - why not share my thoughts?!

     In The Sweetest Hallelujah we meet a young black girl, Billie, and the women who have raised her - her mother, grandmother and her mom's two best friends.  We also meet a white woman from the other side of town who lost her husband a while back and is still dealing with this loss.  Clearly, a common theme is women and their relationships.  There are only a few male characters and play minor roles in comparison to the women of the story.
     I enjoyed both the story and the setting, but there was something off about it for me.  I felt like there were several subplots which were unnecessary and only served to make the book longer than it had to be to tell its story.  I would have preferred some of these stories be shortened or removed altogether so we could spend more time in the main story line.
     Besides this, however, I did very much enjoy the book and the characters.  There were some to root for, some who angered me and some who confused me - just like real life!  I find myself annoyed when a book is full of stereotypical and one-dimensional characters, but I didn't have much of that in this book.  Hussey did a good job, in my opinion, at revealing the motivation/histories for each character which made them, their actions and their speech believable.
     Ultimately I enjoyed the book - was it my favorite book ever?  No, but I would recommend it to someone if they were looking for a new book to read!  Have you read it before?  Would you want to read it?