The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder: A Novel

Product Details

• Shape: NEW
• Notes: Make New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• ISBN13: 9780060175313

Description

Known for her beloved Ya-Ya books (Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, Little Altars Everywhere, and Ya-Yas in Bloom), Rebecca Wells has helped women name, claim, and celebrate their shared sisterhood for over a decade. Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood held the top of the New York Times bestseller list for sixty-eight weeks, became a knockout feature film, sold more than 5 million copies, and inspired the creation of Ya-Ya clubs worldwide.

Now Wells debuts an entirely new cast of characters in this shining stand-alone novel about the pull of first love, the power of life, and the human heart's vast capacity for healing.

The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder is the sweet, sexy, funny journey of Calla Lily's life set in Wells's expanding fictional Louisiana landscape. In the small river town of La Luna, Calla bursts into being, a force of nature as luminous as the flower she is named for. Under the loving light of the Moon Lady, the feminine force that will guide and protect her throughout her life, Calla enjoys a blissful childhood—until it is cut short. Her mother, M'Dear, a woman of rapture and love, teaches Calla compassion, and passes on to her the art of healing through the humble womanly art of "fixing hair." At her mother's side, Calla further learns that this same touch of hands on the human body can quiet her own soul. It is also on the banks of the La Luna River that Calla encounters sweet, succulent first love, with a boy named Tuck.

But when Tuck leaves Calla with a broken heart, she transforms hurt into inspiration and heads for the wild and colorful city of New Orleans to study at L'AcadÉmie de BeautÉ de Crescent. In that extravagant big river city, she finds her destiny—and comes to understand fully the power of her "healing hands" to change lives and soothe pain, including her own. When Tuck reappears years later, he presents her with an offer that is colored by the memories of lost love. But who knows how Calla Lily, a "daughter of the Moon Lady," will respond?

A tale of family and friendship, tragedy and triumph, loss and love, The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder features the warmth, humor, soul, and wonder that have made Wells one of today's most cherished writers, and gives us an unforgettable new heroine to treasure.

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Customer Reviews

Calla Lily touches my heart
After reading the negative reviews of Calla Lily, I felt compelled to write my own review. I have read and reread all of Rebecca Wells' other books and each time, I find something new about each one that intrigues and surprises me. I waited for several months after downloading "Calla Lily" so that I could find just the right time and place to enjoy the latest RW book. I was not disappointed in the least. This book doesn't need to be compared to the YaYa books because it can stand on its own merit. Calla Lily is a wonderful character and her strength throughout her life is amazing. I enjoyed every page of this book and I laughed and cried sometimes at the same time as I was reading. Thank you, Rebecca, for another treasure and one that I know I will read again!!

2010-03-09 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

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A lovely, poignant story!!
Rebecca Wells has beautifully written an engaging coming-of-age story that is rich with emotion. Beginning with her 1950's childhood, it follows Calla Lily Ponder's bittersweet journey into adulthood guided by the Moon Lady. While growing up in tiny La Luna, Louisiana, Calla is surrounded by the love of her family, friends and the neighborhood women gathered at her beloved mother's beauty salon. Her dream is to follow in her mother's footsteps...healing women's hearts while fixing their hair. But soon, tragedy strikes and Calla leaves for vibrant New Orleans, where her adventures change her life forever.

Ms. Wells is a gifted storyteller. She has masterfully created an engaging storyline with a wonderful cast of endearing, compelling characters, and a sweet, loving relationship between mother and daughter. She does a magnificent job describing the essence of life in a small southern town. An enchanting spiritual element was beautifully woven throughout. As entertaining as this story was, it did include important lessons about life, friendship and the resilience of the human spirit. I really loved this thoroughly enjoyable book and I highly recommend it!

2010-02-20 (Maplewood, MN USA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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Solace
I enjoyed reading this book and missed it when it was over. The experience of reading it was unexpectedly healing for me during a hard time, and I'm not even sure why. It just felt good. Yes, there were a few inconsistencies that stood out, but not enough to diminish the overall experience of enjoyment and solace I experienced from this read. I keep looking for another book like it.

2010-02-17 (Philadelphia, PA USA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

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The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder
Calla Lily Ponder is a little girl growing up on the banks of La Luna, a river in old-time Louisiana, with her two vibrant, creative parents, her one-of-a-kind friends, including Tuck, who is just a little too sweet to be just a buddy, and the mysterious Moon Lady her M'Dear (what she calls her mother), assures Calla resides in the moon watching over her. After a year of heavy, post-modernistic reading I was excited for some down-home goodness and what could be better than a new novel by the acclaimed author of //The Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood//? Though I found genuine relief in the premise, I grew disappointed in the novel's lack of surprise, ambition and novelty. Tradition and nostalgia can be beautiful, indispensable tricks of the trade but when coupled with the common plague of drunken fathers, early death, and trite descriptions of sexuality, the hoped-for magic loses its great potential. Despite my nit-picky indifference, come summer this book is sure to be a good friend while sunning, resting after a long day's work, or sipping sweet tea as you remember your own blossoming adolescence.

Reviewed by Natalie Fladager

2010-02-04 | SacramentoBookReview.com (Sacramento, CA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

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Sweet, funny, sexy southern tale
This audio book narrator was amazing. I kept forgetting there was only one person reading this book.

I have been waiting for so very long for Rebecca Wells to write another book. I was not disappointed. There were times when I had arrived home and wanted to pop this audio book out of my car cd player and bring it in. It was sweet and funny and sexy. I could relate to many of the main character's experiences of growing up, but not in any overt way. She was so lovable, Calla Lily Ponder. The story made me think, too, about people and how there is more than what we perceive in a person we may run in to. They are not their jobs or their "station" in life. Complexities are everywhere. Woven into the plot are some 1960-1980 issues in the South: racism, homophobia, oil money, . . . Beautiful southern descriptions of flowers and families and communityare included as well. A really nice story.

2010-01-31 | reader woman (Marion, NY) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

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Little Altars Everywhere: A Novel

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• ISBN13: 9780060759964
• Notes: Manufacturer New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Mould: NEW

Description

The companion to the beloved bestseller Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, here is the funny, heartbreaking, and powerfully insightful tale that first introduced Siddalee, Vivi, their spirited Walker clan, and the indomitable Ya-Yas.

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"It can wear you to a nub, trying to be a popular person and a good Catholic all at the same time." So says Sidda, one of the characters inhabiting Little Altars Everywhere. Author Rebecca Wells uses her considerable acting talent to perform this abridgment, adding even more spark to her already lively characters. Everyone--Shep, Vivi, Willetta, and the rest--is given a distinct voice, and Wells plays each of them to the hilt. More like a recording of a one-woman show than a mere reading, Altars is an excellent example of how entertaining audiobooks can be. (Running time: 3 hours, 2 cassettes) --C.B. Delaney

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Customer Reviews

I read this books years before the Ya Ya movie hit the screen...
...and I was SO disappointed in it. I couldn't relate to it at all. I felt as though I just wasted my money with this little book. Years later when the Ya Ya Sisterhood movie made it big, I saw the movie and read the book. I enjoyed the movie but had a hard time thinking that the southern ladies in their 70s actually would use the F word as much as those ladies in the movie did!! Well, that's Hollywood for you, I figured. Save your money with this book. Unless of course your parent was an alcoholic and then you could relate to the narrator of this story. Maybe then you'd like reading it(?) Idk. I thought it was a big disappointment. The Ya Ya Sisterhood was better. I was totally surprised when I discovered that the two books were actually written by the same person.

2009-03-10 | creativelyspeaking (USA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 1

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Disgusting and Depressing
I along with many others read Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood first. I LOVED it!!! It was one of those books I didn't want to end! I was elated when I found Little Altars everywhere at my local thrift store. I can't believe the diffence between the two!
I was caught off guard immediatley with the lesbian chapter. I had no idea that's where R. Wells was taking it. I had to read and re-read where the mother molests Little Shep because I was sure I was taking it the wrong way. I felt sympathy for Vivi in DSYYS, but not after this. If you want my opinion, read Divine Secrets of the YaYa Sisterhood and forget about Little Altars Everywhere. It's trash, plain and simple!

2008-04-23 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 1

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Emotional Roller Coaster
This book was fabulous - not quite as groundbreaking as the "Divine Secrets.." but still fabulous nonetheless. It made me smile, it made me think, and it made me cry - all the things a good book should do and more. Buy it - read it! Enjoy.

2007-09-26 (GA, USA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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A Strongly Written Book About Growing Up
This isn't *really* my kind of book - it reminded me eerily of something like Margaret Laurence's "A Bird In The House", given it is a collection of interwoven short stories told from the perspectives of different members of a small-town Louisiana family, most notably from the character of Siddalee.

So why am I giving it four stars? Well there wasn't anything I didn't like about it. I found the prose easy to get through and imaginative. The stories for the most part were captivating and enchanting. The characters were well developed and familiar despite our polar opposite lives. The plot moved enough from section to section to keep me interested. I can't justfiy giving it a lower mark just because it's not my preferred style (ie: novel over short stories) or preferred subject matter (ie: modern day as opposed to the past).

The stories revolve around two points in the character's lives - their childhoods in the 1960's and their relatively young adulthood in the early 1990's. Vivi is their eccentric, perhaps dangerously so, mother who also features in the ya ya sisterhood book. Interestingly enough this book was written before (and publicized after) the ya ya sisterhood - yet there are frequent mentions of the ya ya's and some dark secret they share and so on...so I'm guessing that book was simultaneously in the works as this one. Big Shep is Vivi's husband, a working class man who makes a few poor choices that make him forget how to love.

Their children include the eldest daughter Siddalee, who is probably the most identifiable as the main character in the book. Sidda goes through several phases of independence/autonomy and relying on her family for guidance. Her younger brother Lil Shep doesn't feature much in the book other than his desire to be freed from the nasty secrets his family is keeping. I can't remember the next siblings name, I think it's Lulu, who stars in my favourite story in the book about petty theives and liars. Finally there is Baylor, the youngest, who lives in a dream both as a child and an adult.

Overall this is a nice, slow read...it's enjoyable to drink up on lazy summer days in bits and pieces, and very much personifies the southern climate it describes.

2007-07-26 (Winnipeg, MB) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

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The last chapter is worth the entire book
This was the hardest read in the Ya-Ya series. I didn't always like it. It felt disjointed and uneven and some chapters (they were like vignettes, strung together) I started and then just skimmed or left unread.

The final chapter, however - was worth the entire experience. I wish we could have heard from this voice, the adult voice of Siddalee, through the entire thing. Baylor, yeah - he was good, too. There were no other Ya-Ya's (except in passing, where were "the gang" we love so much in Divine Secrets and Ya-Ya's in Bloom?). This book, the prequel to the rest was mostly Vivi's family.

I was reading someplace, maybe it was here, readers were upset about a revelation that takes place in this book. I guess I am weird in that I would rather have the characters in the books I read be flawed, be human.

Vivi is messed up. Ya-Ya readers know that. Her parents were messed up, her children are messed up albeit differently. "Little Altars" begins with Sidda as a pissed-off-on-the-edge-of-puberty girl scout and ends with Sidda as a late 30's woman, the woman who we see several years later narrating half of Divine Secrets.

I don't expect my "heroines" to be wind up toys or robots or flawless automatons. I would rather they be real.

And this volume, in my estimation, doesn't do it.

I think it was written first. But that last chapter. Oh my, that last chapter. I sat at my kitchen table sobbing and my daughter Katherine, from the living room said, "Mommy? Are you ok?" I hadn't realized I was so loud!

Read the last chapter. Pick it up at the bookstore and read it.
Here is one group of sentences as a preview for you:

"As far as I'm concerned, if you could bottle that smell, all the companies that make Xanax, Prozac and Valium would be out of business. You could just open the bottle and smell Willetta and never feel panicked or depressed again."

Love it.

2007-03-31 | Writer, Life Coach - Owner - www.passionactivator.com (Bakersfield, CA United States) | Helpful Votes: 2 | Rating: 3

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Ya-Yas in Bloom: A Novel

Product Details

• Mould: NEW
• ISBN13: 9780060953652
• Notes: Mark New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Description

Rebecca Wells's wonderful third book in her Ya-Ya trilogy, which includes Little Altars Everywhere and Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, is sure to provide reading that makes you laugh and cry, a book that will break your heart and mend it again.

Ya-Yas in Bloom reveals the roots of the Ya-Yas' friendship in the 1930s, following Vivi, Teensy, Caro and Necie through sixty years of marriage, child-raising, and hair-raising family secrets.

When four-year-old Teensy Whitman prisses one time too many and stuffs a big old pecan up her nose, she sets off the chain of events that lead Vivi, Teensy, Caro, and Necie to become true sister-friends. Using as narration the alternating voices of Vivi and the Petite Ya-Yas, Siddalee and Baylor Walker, as well as other denizens of Thornton, Louisiana, Wells show us the Ya-Yas in love and at war with convention. Through crises of faith and hilarious lapses of parenting skills, brushes with alcoholism and glimpses of the dark reality of racial bigotry, the Ya-Ya values of unconditional loyalty, high style, and Louisiana sass shine through.

But in the Ya-Yas' inimitable way, these four remarkable women also teach their children about the Mysteries: the wonder of snow in the deep South, the possibility that humans are made of stars, and the belief that miracles do happen. And they need a miracle when old grudges and wounded psyches lead to a heartbreaking crime...and the dynamic web of sisterhood is the only safety net strong enough to hold families together and endure.

After two bestsellers and a blockbuster movie, the Ya-Yas have become part of American culture -- icons for the power of women's friendship. Ya-Yas in Bloom continues the saga, giving us more Ya-Ya lore, spun out in the rich patois of the Louisiana bayou country and brim full of the Ya-Ya message to embrace life and each other with joy.

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Customer Reviews

Ya-Ya Leftovers
I very much enjoyed the first two Ya-Ya books, so picked this one up expecting more enjoyable reading.

Unfortunately, it's only suitable for Ya-Ya fans who must have more stories of the Walker clan. This book amounts to nothing but left-overs. It appears to be charater sketches that were discarded for use in the first two books. Like the other books it's a collection of vignettes; but this book is more hodge-podge than its predecessors - and doesn't seem to have common plot. The third time Ya-Yas book seems boring; and has way too many characters; - you need the family tree on the book's cover to keep up with the story.

2009-07-26 (Pittsburgh, PA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 2

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Tres blah...
I loved "Divine Secrets" and "Little Altars" and now I think I will have to re-read them in order to erase the memory of Wells' latest book. As the other reviewers said, there was no substance or depth of character. There were glimmers of the charm found in the other two books, such as Baylor's story, but these were few and far between. The Christmas pageant at the end was excrutiatingly bad. I have to wonder if the author dashed this book off at the publisher's request.

2009-04-03 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 2

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excellent
This third collection of Ya-Ya stories was as beautiful, poignant, funny and sad as the first two. I had to keep a pencil by my side in order to underline the especially beautiful turns of phrase and, believe me, there were many.

2008-03-08 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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Vote for strange, not deranged.
Not nearly as good as the first two in the series. There's a bit of feminist hogwash and gun politics at the end which is distracting from the story. I also didn't like the way she made the original YaYas seem a bit on the deranged side.

2007-09-14 (Maryland) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 2

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TERRIBLE
I loved the first YaYa book, enjoyed the second, and hated this one. It had no story, it resembled a book of short stories but not enjoyable ones. Clearly the author just wanted to make some quick money or something, I can't think of another reason why she would have written this. I had liked and cared about the characters, and in this book I couldn't stand any of them.

2007-07-17 | Book Worm (Boston, MA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 1

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The Ya-Ya Boxed Set

Product Details

• <a title='Condition Guide' href='/content/Condition_and_S hipping_Guide.htm' target='_blank'>Click here to estimate our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices</a>
• Condition: NEW
• ISBN13: 9780060932053
• Notes: Stigmatize New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Description

A special Mother's Day boxed set of Rebecca Wells's two New York Times-bestselling novels of the Ya-Yas and the Walker Clan, including a new Note to the Reader.

Both Little Altars Everywhere and Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, chronicling the touching, funny, beguiling Walker family of Thornton, Louisiana, have been phenomenal critical and popular hits. Little Altars Everywhere, the first book, began life as a small-press, word-of-mouth cult classic in 1992, went on to win the Western States Book Award, and was included in the anthology Five Hundred Great Books by Women (Penguin, 1994). It followed Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood onto the New York Times bestseller list in 1998. The 1996 sequel, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, sparked the creation of Ya-Ya clubs around the country, and inspired Terry McMillan (San Francisco Chronicle) to exclaim, "I read the first two pages and I said, 'I haven't heard a white woman talk like this in literature before.'"

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Little Altars Everywhere first introduces readers to Siddalee Walker, her mother Viviane, and Viviane's unforgettable pals, the Ya-Yas--as wild a bunch of born-and-bred steel magnolias as you will ever run across in literature. Set in Louisiana and narrated by various members of the Walker family, Little Altars tells the tragicomic tale of Siddalee's magnificently dysfunctional clan. There is hard-drinking Viviane, who alternately adores her children and abuses them, and Daddy Big Shep, who is inarticulate, alcoholic, and can't quite say what he means and seldom means what he yells. Sidda's siblings are a mess, the family servants are badly treated, and though Rebecca Wells includes many hilarious set pieces throughout, even the Ya-Yas can't completely overcome the dark core at the center of this novel.

Wells continues the saga of Sidda and Vivi Walker in her follow-up, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, and this time the mood is considerably lightened as she takes her characters back in time via a collection of letters, clippings, and scrapbooks--the "divine secrets" of the title. Here a younger, more sympathetic Vivi shares the limelight with her Ya-Ya pals, Teensy, Caro, and Necie. From skinny-dipping in the town water tower to boozing it up at the spring cotillion, these Southern-fried hell-raisers prove what everyone has always suspected--that "it's so much fun being a bad girl!" But you don't have to be bad to enjoy Rebecca Wells's take on family, friendship, and the ties that bind for a lifetime. --Margaret Prior

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Customer Reviews

Great book set
I'm grateful to have the original and the sequel in one box set. Loved the original more than the sequel; however they are both great.

2009-05-23 (Georgia) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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A Real GRITS Pleaser
You don't have to be a GRITS (Girl Raised in the South) to enjoy and identify with the strong, loving women characters in these novels. These books are as crazy as your drunk Uncle Rabon at a wedding and as poignant as the first anniversary of your favorite huntin' dog's death. We all should have friends like these - Ya Ya!

2007-10-25 | Real GRITS (Scenic NE Florida USA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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Go Ya-Yas!
Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya sisterhood and Little Alters Everywhere tell the tale of Vivi and her beloved girlfriends the "Ya-Yas" and about Siddalee, her daughter who she both physicaly and emotionaly abused. Sidda was beaten, slapped, and called names by her own mother who was a drunk. Vivi, though charming and fun, is also very selfish and cruel. Sidda goes from being a hurt, abused little girl to a tough and passionate young woman in her 30s who still fights with her mother over a Time magazine article in which she tells of her mother's damanging ways. As Sidda slowly comes to know more about her mother from a scrapbook, it forever changes her life as she starts to heal past wounds and being able to move on from her dark past. Sidda is a beautifuly written voice, and there's so much truth to these books. So many parents abuse their kids and all for selfish reasons and most of all because they don't love them. Sidda doesn't know how to love anyone, since her parents didn't love her enough. But Vivi, though an unfit mother, is sorry more then ever that she hurt her poor children and both women struggle to regain their realionship. I love this book. It's a great book. It made me cry and laugh. I love the South, so I loved this book and the child-abuse subject is a very universal subject matter which I'm sure a lot of people are very farmilar with and can understand and have been through.

2007-08-06 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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Little Alters Everywhere
This was a most enjoyable easy read. It filled you will sense of the south and a life (both good and bad) that most of us only see in the movies.

2005-08-09 | mmbyrd56 (Henderson, KY) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 5

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Boxed set allows reader to find out "all about the Walkers"
I was leant a well read dog-eared copy of 'Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood' a few years ago and came to know and love Rebecca Wells' style and story telling capabilities.

Ms. Wells has the ability to capture a particular era and region of the country (the South) and make her characters come alive.

The Ya-Yas are all about friendship, loyalty and some much darker and less admirable human traits as well. Some of the situations recounted in these two VERY different books about the Walker family will have the reader squirming with discomfort. For Rebecca Wells is intent on telling the whole story: the bad, the sad, the shocking, as well about the successes, the joys and a lot of giggles at the funnier side of human nature.

When you have finished both volumes in this boxed set, you will have a really good idea of what makes a very complex set of family members (the Walkers) "tick". What keeps them together, what may tear them apart. The journey isn't going to be boring in Ms. Wells' talented hands.

The story(stories) prove that being a "southern belle" isn't nearly as easy as you might think.

I'm happy to have my own lovely boxed set, combining both volumes 'Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood' and 'Little Alters Everywhere', so I can revisit these fascinating people any time I want. My particular recommendation for the reader would be to read 'Divine Secrets' first and then flesh out the history of the clan with 'Little Alters'. But I have wondered many times why Ms. Wells published the smaller, episodic 'Little Alters' first. So those uninitiated into Ya-Ya-hood, may wish to read them in order of the published date. If you do, PLEASE let me know what you think about the experience. I'd be interested in your opinions.

2003-04-13 (Missouri) | Helpful Votes: 6 | Rating: 5

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Little Altars Everywhere

Description

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Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood: A Novel

Product Details

• Notes: Sort New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• ISBN13: 9780060759957
• Mould: NEW
• <a title='Condition Guide' href='/content/Condition_and_S hipping_Guide.htm' target='_blank'>Click here to observe our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices</a>

Description

When Siddalee Walker, oldest daughter of Vivi Abbott Walker, Ya-Ya extraordinaire, is interviewed in the New York Times about a hit play she's directed, her mother gets described as a "tap-dancing child abuser." Enraged, Vivi disowns Sidda. Devastated, Sidda begs forgiveness, and postpones her upcoming wedding. All looks bleak until the Ya-Yas step in and convince Vivi to send Sidda a scrapbook of their girlhood mementos, called "Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood." As Sidda struggles to analyze her mother, she comes face to face with the tangled beauty of imperfect love, and the fact that forgiveness, more than understanding, is often what the heart longs for.

Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood may call to mind Prince of Tides in its unearthing of family darkness; in its unforgettable heroines and irrepressible humor and female loyalty, it echoes Fannie Flagg's Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe.

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Wells is a Louisiana-born Seattle actress and playwright; her loopy saga of a 40-year-old player in Seattle's hot theater scene who must come to terms with her mama's past in steamy Thornton City, Louisiana, reads like a lengthy episode of Designing Women written under the influence of mint juleps and Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom!. The Ya-Yas are the wild circle of girls who swirl around the narrator Siddalee's mama, Vivi, whose vivid voice is "part Scarlett, part Katharine Hepburn, part Tallulah." The Ya-Yas broke the no-booze rule at the cotillion, skinny-dipped their way to jail in the town water tower, disrupted the Shirley Temple look-alike contest, and bonded for life because, as one says, "It's so much fun being a bad girl!"

Siddalee must repair her busted relationship with Vivi by reading a half-century's worth of letters and clippings contained in the Ya-Ya Sisterhood's packet of "Divine Secrets." It's a contrived premise, but the secrets are really fun to learn.

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Customer Reviews

In my top ten favorite novels
I cried when I read a flashback of Vivi's childhood. I laughed out loud during some of the funny stories of the Ya-Yas. My heart ached for some of the trauma that poor Siddalee endured. I was angry at Vivi's mother for being just so terrible at it. I honestly can say that I've never actually felt as many emotions while reading a novel as I have during this one. I read a review of another reader that said she wasn't super excited to read this because the title is rather silly and I agree with that. However, titles can be deceiving. I had no idea what I was in for.

This book is anything but silly. It is an incredible drama with tales woven in of physical abuse, alcoholism, friendship, lost love, the kind of trauma that a mother can leave with a daughter, and trying to find a place in life when you feel damaged.

The author is a wonderful writer and storyteller. She also brilliantly went back and forth between different periods of time effortlessly. You must read this book. I've recommended it to nearly everyone in my life and I haven't heard one person say they didn't devour it and love every moment of reading it.

One other note - if you have seen the movie, please read the book! The book is so much better and has so much more detail. The movie compared to the novel was quite terrible.

2010-02-16 (Winthrop, MA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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Just Right
The book was in good condition and just as was described. Very reasonable price and was shipped very quickly. Will definitely buy from this dealer again.

2010-02-15 | juslibby1 (Talladega, Alabama) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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Good Read
this book took me a little longer to read than Little Alters, but I still enjoyed it. I know I'm late in reading this series lol, but I'm off to Ya-Ya's in Bloom. How can anyone NOT like the YaYa's

2009-12-03 | shopper extrodinaire (texas) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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Heart Warming and True
This book resonated within me. It spoke of relationships between mothers, sisters, daugthers and friends and I could related to each of these. In our lives, we are are in turn daughters, sisters and mothers,wives and lovers too, and I related to Sidda in her quest for her mother's love, to Vivi even in her darkest moments, to Caro in her protectiveness of her friend. For me, it was just about life, as it happens to people... and that what struck my heart.
I thought the book was well written, beautifully paced... I went from page 65 to page 800 without even realizing it. Some characters are strongs, other a bit more absent, but it didn't make the book any less strong.
I would strongly recommend this book.

2009-08-11 | Love to Read (PAP, Haiti) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

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Good chick lit....
Received this as a gift about five years ago, read it very quickly, but it still sticks with me.

It shows you how you "really" are like your mother even if you don't want to be. :)

I really liked it...I would have been upset to find the scrapbook about my mother's life, but also would want to know.

It is an enjoyable read...chick lit of course...but you will love it.

2009-08-08 (Pennsylvania) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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