The Red Hat Club

Rating:
Summary: Best book I've read in a LONG time!!
Review: A real page turner that leaves you longing to rekindle all those childhood friendships long since forgotten! A great girl power book! I can't wait for the next installment!

Rating:
Summary: WOW, what a fun read!
Review: Amazing to find a woman of our maturity still having this much fun. Plus, she is just a very good writer and has a way with putting together that southern phrace that just tickles your senses. Like the typical New Englander of other regional writer, Ms. Smith gets the southern woman down to a tee. just fun and good sense of what this Red Hat business is all about...friendship, conspiracy and trust in the southern way. i love this book. lot's of fun to read.

Rating:
Summary: fun summer read
Review: I read this book after I finished a more serious piece of literature and found it to be fun, and humerous. It's an easy and fast read if you are looking for a good summer book. The characters and plot are not necessarily realistic but who wants realistic!? I enjoyed the book and think most women would get a kick out of it too.

Rating:
Summary: The Red Hat Club
Review: I wasn't sure what to expect when I picked up this book. If I ever catch my husband cheating on me, I want these ladies by my side. I was drawn in from the first page. It was fun to read these ladies in action. I can't wait to continue the story.

Rating:
Summary: What a Hoot!
Review: I've lived in the Atlanta area for sixteen years and I thought I might be bored by the familiar in Red Hat Club. References to locations and landmarks, like Piedmont Ave, The Varsity and AJC. I questioned the use of the Jenny Jones Red Hat reference as been there done that. I sort of even resisted, trying to be aloof and objective, certainly not wanting to be swayed by all the things I had in common with the protag, Georgia; same age, similar life questions and experiences. I wanted to be cool and sophisticated and not invest anything in the other characters, Teeny, Linda, Diane and SuSu either because I prefer to believe that modern Southern women are not stereotypical airheads.

My ploy didn't work. I was putty in Haywood's hands by the end of chapter two. From then on, I just relaxed and enjoyed it and before it was over I found I was not only invested in the women of the Red Hat Club, I felt as though I could have fit right into their tight circle and would if they'd invite me.

I read for many reasons, pleasure, stimulation, information. But sometimes it's good to curl up on a rainy (North Georgia) Sunday and read an easy, lighthearted tale that tugs at your own memories of misspent youth and lost dreams. Sometimes that's all I need. But if I can turn the last page feeling I know the characters and wishing to read more about them, the author has done her job and what more can you ask of a work of fiction?

I was and she did.

Rating:
Summary: fun summer read
Review: The characters in this book seem more like children than grown women. they govern their friendships with child like rules and have cutsy little names like Su Su. and Brad just an awlful book. Heywood uses baby terms like gabberflasted. I was just bored with the whole predictable story line.

Rating:
Summary: This is NOT your RED HAT SOCIETY!
Review: This book really has little to do with the Red Hat Society, fortunately. My group of Red Hatters is quite a bit more mature than this group of 50-somethings stuck in their teen years. There is a lot of mediocre revenge from shallow, stuck up "socialites." The word(s) Y'ALL is used ad nauseum, sometimes more than once in the same sentence.
...a waste of time as far as I was concerned...

Rating:
Summary: Hilarious
Review: Ths book had me in stiches and I couldn't put it down. Sent it to my friend who loved it so much she sent it to her daughter.
After reading the book I wanted to be "like the ladies in the book" and promptly joined the Red Hat Society.
Great way to enjoy life and meet wonderful fun-loving women!
Wish I could buy a copy of this book for every woman I know over 50!

Rating:
Summary: Avoid at All Cost!!
Review: What a waste of a reader's time! Friends for umpteen years, these women still rely on "traditions" established when they were pre-teens? I don't think so. I cannot possibly imagine any group of middle aged women who will cite certain "rules" (referred to as "traditions" in their jargon) throughout conversations. Who keeps track of such nonsense? The characters might have had substance, but the constant back tracking to the days of yore (teendom) led to days of yawn by yours truly. And in the end, they all lived happily ever after--if not with a man, then with his fortune. Just ducky. Just avoid it. Trust me.

Rating:
Summary: The best revenge?
Review: What fun! Anyone who's been jilted (or knows someone who has) can take vicarious delight in the antics of the members of this Red Hat Club. Friends since high school over thirty years ago, these five Atlanta women are coming into that second rebellious age: They will wear purple (like the poem), will no longer play the nicey-nice little wife, and might even utter "the f word" -- all on the road to personal empowerment. The tone is light and funny, but there is enough of a serious bent to provide food for thought. The emotions and relationships bring home a truth: Many of us need the support of gal pals to be brave enough to be ourselves.

I got a big kick out of the group's Twelve Sacred Traditions -- and the fact that they were referred to by number. Few of us have such explicit rules of friendship, but oh, how many times would like you like to say to blabbermouth friend, "Tradition 4, honey! No telling!" or a nosy one, "Tradition 5: Mind your own business!"? In addition to the discussion questions in the back of the book, reading groups might like to ponder these rules: What written or unwritten rules of friendship do we have and would we adopt these same twelve?