Rating: 
Summary: A good read but somewhat disappointing
Review: I enjoyed this book and finished it in a weekend. It held my attention and I liked the way the story was told through the voices of different characters. I was disappointed with the lack of courage and moral character of many of the characters. Come on,if the preacher raped a 12 year old ( her dad had to "sew her vagina up") and contributed to the suicidal death of another teenager he had impregnated, I think he would deserve a stronger consequence than being tarred and feathered. He just moved on to another town to victimize other innocent children. Also, why didn't someone just shoot Sophie's husband? I could go on and on. I don't know, maybe it's just me, but I found some of the choices the characters made unrealistic. None of them had a backbone.Most southern women are stronger than this book portrayed.
Rating: 
Summary: It just keeps getting better!
Review: I swear, I think this woman is incapable of writing anything but outstanding books, and this in no exception. This is just a wonderful read. If you have ever lived in the deep south, you will know someone just like each and every one of the well developed characters. The characters in this book all felt like familiar old friends and the descriptions of the flowers, bugs, and foods of the south were dead on. Then there are the mouth watering recipes. I haven't tried any of them yet, but trust me, I will. I just finished this book late last night and am already yearning for a sequel. I have read all of her books and so far this is my hands down favorite. She makes me proud to be Southern.
Rating:
Summary: I liked it, but it was rather depressing.
Review: For the most part, the book kept me entertained. I found it depressing though. It just did not have many happy moments. I kept waiting for the characters to find some happiness or to reveal some qualities that I could admire. I wanted a happy ending & did not get it. The story was well written & several of the women in my book club really loved the novel. It was my first time reading a book by Michael Lee West. She did a very good job of creating believable characters. I did not love this book, but I would read another one of her books simply because she writes well.
Rating:
Summary: Remarkable for many reasons!
Review: Ms. West earns my immense praise for her razor-clean dialogue, including precise dialectical discernment. She succeeds in producing images of both character and setting that draw the reader toward the next development. No doubt often laugh-out-loud funny and alternately soulfully depressing...and though, I admit it appeals to my (healthy, normal)prurient interests... I was distracted at times by borderline vulgarity and repulsed by expressions of unrelenting violence. Raymond Carver and Flannery O'Connor are my touchstones for this criticism. Also,I didn't need to witness (almost) each and every character lose his/her sexual innocence, whether painfully or pleasurably.Incorporating recipes...hmmm...a "tetch" gimmicky. Generally speaking it has some extremely proud pages and some flaws that I tolerated because of that.
Rating:
Summary: Sweet but a Little too Lingering
Review: Being a displaced Southerner, I'm a sucker for books about life in the South. While this book is sweetly written, I found it a little too sugar sweet and about 100 pages too long. For some reason, I expected more scandal than actually happened. I thought the whole town would erupt, but instead only a few families were truly involved.Ms. West has a really sweet writing style, and I think this book would make for a great summer beach read except for the fact its 425 pages long. I like the way the recipes are interwoven into the story. And I like the way Ms. West describes her characters. I never could get a real image of Vangie Nepper in my head. Every time I read someone's view of her, the image changed. Was she fat, just 5 pounds overweight, extremely gray and wrinkled, or aging gracefully with the help of a little hair dye????? Also, don't be surprised by the crude sex running rampant through the book. Some folks may view it in direct opposition to the southern "manners" tone of the book but I think that's the whole point of it...
Rating:
Summary: Good but....
Review: I am always reading books hoping to find the perfect discussion book for my bookclub. This book could have been a wonderful discussion book, but I am not comfortable recommending a book with as much explicit sexual content as this one had. I found myself shaking my head in disbelief that Ms. West felt that the sexual content would add anything benefical to this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Another Southern Small-Town Saga
Review: Limoges Louisiana is the kind of small town where everybody knows your name--and your business. Vangie Nepper finds they know her business before she does. They know that her pharmacist husband, Henry, is fooling around with his soda girl. They know that Olive Nepper, Vangie and Henry's daughter, lies in the community hospital, comatose and pregnant. Life in 1952 is orderly and wholesome--at least for appearance sake. But as told by its citizens, life is hardly pious and sedate in Limoges. Adultry, wife-beating, false preachers, and of course, gossip color the town. It is the gossip aspect that keeps the pace of the story. Like the good people of Limoges, the reader yearns for more of the story. Because the characters are so splendidly defined, the reader wants to know all motivations, all nuances. Though more sexually explicit than I prefer, it's still a captivating story that the reader reluctantly lets go. And the recipes are a deft touch.
Rating:
Summary: Warm, Wise and Wonderful
Review: This is a book not to be missed. It is warm, wise, and wonderful. She Flew the Coop is story telling at its best. Ms. West writes deliciously well and gives such life and breath to a place and its people that you'll yearn to know more about them and visit with them long after you've read the last page. The tragic and the comic find such a natural balance in Ms. West's writing that the events of the book just seem a part of life, not extraordinary. The attention to detail is so exquisite that you'll feel as if you are being let in on privileged information that only those closest to the story's teller must know. There isn't space to say enough nice things about this book. Suffice it to say that story telling this good doesn't come along very often. Treat yourself!
Rating:
Summary: Worth reading!
Review: She Flew the Coop is sometimes funny, sometimes sad, but ALWAYS interesting. My favorite chapter describes Cab Beaulieu as he loses his boyhood innocence and begins his first sexual experiences. I didn't know 13 year old boys were ever as innocent as Cab. Michael Lee West is able to bring a gossiping small town to life as the readers share the character's joys and sorrows.
Rating:
Summary: I LOVED THIS BOOK!
Review: I did not want this book to end. Whenever I was away, I couldn't wait to pick it back up. The characters were great!
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