Rating: 
Summary: Even if you enjoy it, you don't have to like it
Review: I love Siddons's books. I'll read anything that has her byline on it and I'll enjoy it whether I like it or not! How can that be, you ask? Well, she's a pictoral writer. By that I mean her words conjure mental pictures of characters and scenes in the reader's mind. The setting she writes about in ISLANDS (the coastal South) is beloved and familiar to me. She has the ability to create a charming world for the reader that is a delight to experience. All that said, although I enjoyed reading ISLANDS, I felt the story was weak. The ending seemed dux ex machina and the characters were too familiar to avoid the feeling that they were cliches. She's still my favorite author and I'll read every book she writes, but ISLANDS strikes me as a book written by someone who no longer has anything to say. Ms. Siddons has lived in her world so long and written it so well that it's time to stretch her talent with something new.
Rating: 
Summary: Slow Starting
Review: I'd been wanting to try Siddons, but maybe I choose the wrong book. I've started and finished 3 other books while trying to get going on this one. After 83 pages, I'm going to give it up and try another of her books.
It just feels like the characters are drifting. The descriptions setting the scene appeals, but Anny Butler seems so low-key that she is almost a nonentity.
Rating:
Summary: Keep your hanky handy!
Review: This is a heart-wrenching tale of 8 friends, growing older, and promising to always be there to take care of one another despite the fact that one of them is crazy and a murderer!!! All the usual problems of growing old....death, sickness, crises, etc. I did not especially care for this book, thought it was a downer.
Rating:
Summary: Thoroughly captivating read!
Review: This was my first ARS book and was well worth the weekend I devoted to it! While, to a certain extent, I shared the feeling about lack of character development expressed by other reviewers, for me, it was more a book about the exquisite character of Charleston and Edisto, and Sullivan Island. The first two are personal favorites, and the story that covered so many years included wonderfully descriptive narratives about places I love dearly, although I felt the devastation of Hugo was understated. ARS must have utilized very subtle foreshadowing because I had an uneasy sense about the villain almost from the beginning - these Southern women can be lethal when crossed (speaking as transplant from the north). Perhaps it was that uneasiness that made me feel I'd learned as much about these women as I cared to! This was a very enjoyable book that'll be the catalyst to reading some of her other, more highly recommended, books. I cannot compare this to others by this author, but on its face, Islands is a great read.
Rating: 
Summary: Islands
Review: To have the gift of a group of friends like the one in Islands is a blessing. Read about them and share their lives. If you don't have friends like these, try to make at least one really close friend who'll share your life with you.
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