Just Jennifer

32 Candles Ernessa T. Carter (Amistad, June 22, 2010)

Growing up in Mississippi, Davidia Jones is nicknamed Monkey Night by her classmates because she is dark as night and ugly.  She endures years of cruelty and abuse from her classmates and her alcoholic mother who has a steady parade of men, usually rich, through her bedroom at night.  At five, Davidia decides to stop talking and doesn’t start again until after she is fifteen years old and has run across the country to L.A. where she starts a new life as a lounge singer (she has decided she can start speaking again) and where she creates a new family from strangers who will accept her for how she is.  The chance meeting of a man on whom Davidia had a mammoth crush in high school alters the course of her life and makes her reexamine just what is important.  Davidia has a certain vulnerable quality about her, though she is very capable of taking care of herself.  A revenge list she creates and carries out seems out of character for this young woman who has been able to stay very centered against all odds.  The title is a reference to the John Hughes movie 16 Candles that Davidia sees as a young child and tries to emulate, hoping her life will have a movie moment.