Rating: 
Summary: I wish the Ya-ya's were my friends!
Review: I loved reading "Little Altars Everywhere" even when it got disturbing, and I felt like I had lost my friends when the book ended, so finding "The Divine Secrets..." was like linking up with long-lost friends. I was transported to their south and lived with them, and cried with them and had such a good time that I felt like at any time they might just show up at my door and off we'd go in the convertible for a bloody mary picnic. I've already passed it along to one of the members in my reading group and I'm sure there will be others. Here's to friendships
Rating:
Summary: Completely Impossible to put down.
Review: My attention was caught the other day by the title as I browsed at the local book store, so I thought "Heck. I'll read a few pages just to see." By the time I reached page 25, I was hooked, and *had* to have it. It is a brilliant story of the meanings of love, friendship, motherhood, daughterhood, and all the thousands of layers that you find in each relationship in your life. Be prepared to buy a second copy to send to your mother or daughter...it is a book like The Color Purple...it will change your world
Rating:
Summary: Fabulous!!!
Review: I loved every minute it
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful story about women's relationships with women
Review: In this story, a woman grows to understand and appreciate her mother through her mother's lifelong friendship with three other women. The author does an excellent job in portraying the difficult relationship between mother and daughter and an even better job of portraying the depth and richness of the 50 year friendship between the four women. This is a great gift book for your friend
Rating:
Summary: A Life Changing Book....
Review: This book was given to me by a friend and it is one of the most life changing books I have ever read. It truly is a best seller. After years of trying to forgive my mother for things she doesn't even realize she's done, the book was an inspiration to me to finally write her a letter of appreciation for all she did that WAS wonderful. The reading of the book allowed me to forgive and to be at peace with myself about our relationship. Being an oldest daughter, I could certainly identify with the daughter. It is truly a must read for all mothers and daughters. I shall never forget it. My appreciation to Rebecca Wells for such an inspiring, thought-provoking, and delightful book
Rating:
Summary: Awesome!
Review: I picked this up at the library simply because I was intrigued by the title. Ya-ya's? Without going on and on with accolades, I highly recommend this funny, sad,thought provoking novel to anyone. It's like Steel Magnolias in print only much more wonderful. The best
Rating:
Summary: Forgiveness not Forgetting
Review: Okay... so love means never having to say you are sorry is ridiculous. But in Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood, Rebecca Wells shows us that families often don't have the language for apologies. The novel's protagonist, SiddaLee Walker, grew up in the sixties with a crazy family (who didn't) and now, at 40, she's struggling to transform the old hurts and grab hold of her own life. Through memory and the voices of her mother's dearest friends, she finds learns that forgiveness is a journey of understanding, not forgetting. This book paints a portrait of mother-daughter relationships that is ever so true. But it is also a book about friendship and the special quality of unconditional love that exists between women who have shared all of their lives' best and worst events with each other. Between the belly-laughs and the tears, you won't want to put this book down
Rating:
Summary: A mom-daughter story from Hell-with side trips to Heaven!
Review: I found this book to be awe-inspiring! For every daughter who thought her relationsip with her mother was "one of a kind". A story so full of truth and pain that all mothers and daughters should find shelter it's pages. It has a reality that few writers are capable of. When I finished devouring the pages, I looked for other books by Wells, but found only one--a sort of introduction to the same family she writes about in the "Ya Ya Sisterhood". I only wish all women had the opportunity to have friends like these women. Long live the Sisterhood! You can give this book to your mother when you're done with it, and she will have the revelations that you did, only from her perspective as a mother. I pray that Wells is in the early stages of her writing career, for she is truly special
Rating: 
Summary: Gumbo, Zydeco and Ya-Yas - a Rich Mix
Review: If you read "Little Altars Everywhere", you will be glad to know that "Divine Secrets" takes a look at the life of Siddalee Walker from the distance of heavily analyzed adulthood. "Divine Secrets" focuses once again on Siddalee, but this time she is a 40-year old successful stage director who is taking some time out from her career and her love life to put to rest some old ghosts.After having humiliated her mother in national print (a New York Times reporter calls Viviane Walker "a tap dancing child abuser"), Siddalee is gifted with her mother's scrapbook, which, in Vivane Walker's typically outrageous style, has been named "The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood". Viviane sends Siddalee this volume of personal mementos in an effort to have Siddalee understand her better without having to put any personal effort into the process. Inside this scrapbook, Siddalee discovers bits and pieces of her mother's past - pictures, newspapaer articles, mementos - but she is not granted the entire story surrounding each of these titilating fragments. The reader is able to learn, through Viviane's own memory, all of the interesting details that Siddalee doesn't get to know. This, I feel, is the greatest weekness in "Divine Secrets". The reader gets to see Viviane as a child and an adolescent, living in a home where she is abused by her father and openly detested by her mother. We learn about the death in WWII of Viviane's first and only love and the stresses put on her by having four stair-step children and an absentee husband. Siddalee, however, is not privy to any of this information. She reads tantalizing tidbits in newspaper articles, gleans what meaning she can from photographs, party invitations, and mysterious keys, but never knows any of the details the reader does. Because of this, it is difficult for me to believe that in the end of the novel Siddalee can forgive Viviane her many transgressions. It doesn't seem to me that she has enough information to be that magnanimous. Other than this one flaw, "Divine Secrets" is a beautiful book. The women in this novel are fully realized characters - I recognized each one of these women, and even grew up with some of them (but not all of them together, thank goodness!). The descriptions of Louisiana are rich and detailed, and as much as I hate a crustaceon, I was dreaming of crawfish for days after turning the last page. "Divine Secrets" is about forgiveness and the power of love. Rebecca Wells is brave to offer up a novel filled with women who are real enough to not always be likable (in fact, Viviane is almost never likable), and she is a talented enough word smith to keep these women sympathetic. "Divine Secrets" is a soothing, redeeming follow up to "Little Altars", and I recommend it. Throw some Zydeco on the stereo and curl up with a cup of java - this one will keep you up all night!
Rating: 
Summary: Books dealing with the south
Review: For me, books dealing with the South are like pizza and sex---even when they're bad they're still pretty good. That's not to say that "Divine Secrets" is bad, it isn't. In fact, I thoroughly enjoyed it. As a matter of fact, it's one of the two best books I've read recently that dealt with family sagas, secrets, the south, and a host of other things. The other is a book called "The Bark of the Dogwood--A Tour of Southern Homes and Gardens." Both books are entertaining and well-written. But I digress. My point is that books dealing with southern themes and ideas, well . . .you can't go wrong. Why is it that all the great writers are Southern? Who knows. And I don't care. All I do know is that "Divine Secrets" is a rollicking good time with more than a few dark undertones. This one's a keeper.
|
