Rating: 
Summary: Funny and true!
Review: I have had this book since it was first published. And it is funny and hits home. I just love it. Marlyn Schwartz knows what it means to be Southern.
Rating: 
Summary: An Inside Look
Review: I liked this book for its honest humor and its gentle but no-holds-barred look at Southern womanhood, its traditions and manners. I particularly enjoyed the section on weddings and all of the traditions involved in a Southern wedding, including the sip-and-see and the substitute bride. The section on sororities and their importance in the scheme of life in the south was an interesting one too.I chuckled at the first chapter's title "Who Are Your People?" because although I have lived my life barely straddling the Mason-Dixon line, this is still an often-asked question! While some may put down these kinds of traditions, I found many of them to be touching. And in today's on-the-move society, isn't it nice to have the stability of tradition in one's life?
Rating:
Summary: Pretty funny.
Review: I live in the South but am not a southern belle or sorority sister. I thought I wouldn't like this book but boy, was I surprised. It's really, really funny and very entertaining. Not classic literature, but very entertaining.
Rating:
Summary: Just precious
Review: I need to buy this book for all my (Northern) friends who ask why I've lived in Seattle for ten years but still say that I'm from Georgia. This book is really funny, but so true with all the silver patterns, "good" sororities, rules ("never put dark meat in chicken salad"), vocabulary (precious to tacky) and on and on.... junior league, weddings, clothing/jewelry rules ("never wear an ankle bracelet before ever")... makes me long for my sorority days and want to break out my silver.
Rating:
Summary: Southern Belle
Review: I often look for books and magazines about southern life, This is the best I've seen yet. I was raised in the south, And relate to this book. The rules of the south have been unwritten for years. Every Belle is taught the traditions by her family. This book reminds me of stories and chat that I have heard from granny. Every Belle needs this book YOUNG AND OLD!
Rating:
Summary: Entertaining Read
Review: I read this book while I was in college in the south and a Kappa Kappa Gamma! This is a hilarious mocking of southern women and their traditions. A quick and easy read that will keep you laughing for weeks!
Rating:
Summary: Love it!
Review: I really enjoyed this a lot. It was funny and useful at the same time.
Rating:
Summary: Love it!
Review: I really enjoyed this a lot. It was funny and useful at the same time.
Rating:
Summary: Very, Very Entertaining, Even for a Yankee
Review: I received this book, along with New Times in the Old South (wonderful as well) by Ms. Schwartz, as a 15-year-old faced with the prospect of moving from New Jersey to a small town in southern Georgia. I did not want to read the book, as I was to remain at my boarding school in the North and didn't care to move to some town where there was only one traffic light! Now I think moving there would have been a fun experience, but it never did come to fruition. I think my mother was disappointed that my sister and I would not be debutantes and sorority girls. Except that I became a sorority girl. I went to college never expecting to rush, but, lo and behold, I did, and I got a bid from a sorority that is extremely prominent in the South. As a newly-initiated 18-year-old, I picked up this book and could not stop reading it! While it is definitely tongue-in-cheek, there were all these descriptions of Southern ladyhood that made me wish I had moved there! And then reading comments about MY sorority in particular... I could have died laughing! I used to read it during breaks at work that summer, and the women I worked with were always having me read excerpts to them because I'd be laughing so hard. While it would have been easy for me, as a Northerner, to dismiss this book as making fun of the South since it does have a slight sarcastic tone to it, I can appreciate that some of it is very true, which I have learned from friends born south of the Mason-Dixon and from my experiences receiving invitations to debutante balls in Austria. I am 23 now and still recount tales from this book to friends and recommend that they read it regardless of whether or not they have connections to the South. It also made me understand my southern friends a whole lot better, especially the girls. This book provides a very entertaining perspective on Southern culture that in some ways makes us up here want to start calling the Civil War the "War of Northern Aggression." Ok, maybe not, but I will admit that this book made me wish I had gotten to experience the Southern way of life, even if only for a few years. I would also like to note that every Halloween I contemplate buying an expensive Scarlett O'Hara costume...
Rating: 
Summary: While it is a good book...
Review: I was a bit disappointed overal in this book. While some things did have me chuckling to myself (knowing I did this) a lot of it had no relevance to main-stream Southern ways. Maybe I didn't get the concept. The book did not have as much "substance" as I had hoped. For instance, I don't care much about debutantes or beauty pagents or the "Junior League". (I had never even heard of the Junior League until I read it listed in an obituary in my local newspaper!) There is plenty more to include about the South than who's in what pagent. Bottom line, this book is humerous, but it takes a lot more to be a Southern belle than what Maryln includes in this book.
| 
