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Summary: I loved this book!!
Review: What a great book about women and their relationships with their friends and families. Sidda remembers her Mother and the past in a certain way. But as we get her Mother's perspective we are exposed to both the warmth and the darkness of growing up in the South. Great characters, great story and wonderful writing. I really missed the book when I was done reading it!
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Summary: An intimate account of sisterhood among southern young women
Review: I had read several reviews and noticed this book has been on all of the best seller lists and was interested. Still, I had slight reservations reading a book about white southern women. However I found the love and camaraderie between these four women heartwarming. Being an African-American woman I found some of the references of the relationships with blacks, if not offensive maybe uncomfortable but I put into perspective the setting and time period. The scene where Vivi and her three comrades entered into a Shirley look-a-like contest that excluded little black girls was both poignant and humorous. When you think of how women and friendships should be this book gets to the heart of solidarity and sisterhood as any I've read about or encountered. I became wistful for the friendships I had in high school. I am about the age of Sidda and my mother the age of Vivi, the main characters. I just finished the book last week and will turn over to my southern born mother and let her reminisce about her Shirley Temple Days.
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Summary: This is one OPRAH missed!!!!!!!!!!!!
Review: One of the best books I have read since Wally Lamb's "She's Comming Undone" Cannot believe that this one has not been selected by Oprah for her book club. Everyone has some YA Yas in their family and this book was so relateable. I laughed, cried and quietly smiled, knowing and remembering my childhood and my mother and her Ya Ya Sisterhood.
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Summary: she nails the depiction of upper crust Southern women
Review: I enjoyed this book immensely and couldn't put it down. But reading through the other reviews, I find myself agreeing with a lot of the negative ones. I wonder if you have to have been raised in the South to fully appreciate these women?? I found Sidda to be the least compelling character in this novel; she was far outweighed by the zany outrageous-ness of her mom and the ya-yas. But Wells' descriptions of how she finds strength and connectedness in spite of the absurd strait jacket of Southern culture in mid-century is well worth wading through the slow parts. The things that bothered me the most about this novel were the things that weren't mentioned: all the other young women in Vivi's community who must have felt hurt and left out by the ya-ya's cliquishness; the black nurse who spends three months at a time away from her children caring for white babies is barely alluded to, while vivi's five month absence from Sidda is the center of the emotional pain in the novel. You wonder if Wells is aware of these things and chose to leave them out, or if she really just doesn't get it. But still, there is a lot of healing power in "Divine Secrets" about strong women living in a time and a place where strong women were forced underground. It's a flawed novel, but well worth reading.
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Summary: A wonderful, easy-reading novel about southern-cultured wome
Review: This is a delightful & whimsical novel which portrays the southern, upper classes, idea of womenhood. This includes the entire lives of women, from their births, upbringing, and instilling of how southern women should behave, through marriage and into their retirement years. The result is a mixture of a delicate, lady-like, well-mannered lady, with a witty, sensual, feisty, head-strong woman. The southern culture, during this perioed (1930s-present), shows how the woman dominated the homefront and raised their children, not with the help of their husbands, but with the help of black women. In effect, these children were raised with two mothers, of two different cultures. The closeness of friendships, not only of the Ya-Yas (white women), but of the integral part of the nannies (black women), shows the intense interdependence of cultures that clash to form the essence of these women. The men are only present to highlight the roles of how a 'proper southern lady' should act and to emphasize the mental strain it played in their lives. That is why the friendship of the four women works so well, and is so close. They could only depend on one another, not the men.Since I lived in the South for several years, the southern culture has always fascinated me. I come from a totally different place, the southwest, and I had only read about 'the south.' This is a wonderful novel, capturing the enitre essence of southern women and their ways.
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Summary: Thank you, Merci, Rebecca Wells!
Review: A master of story-telling in the southern tradition, Ms. Wells has crafted a novel crammed full of humor, irony, pathos, and the very art of living. The reviews I've read claim that it is a mother/daughter story, but I do not agree. The daughter, Siddalee Walker, is a but vessel through which the lives of four septuagenarian women friends are told. These women are the Ya-Yas, a close-knit quartet of Louisiana girls who've known each other their entire lives. And what lives they've had. The title comes from a scrapbook Sidda's mother Vivi has kept for some sixty-odd years. It in this book that Siddalee, at 40, learns of more of the trials, tribulations, triumphs and tragedies of her mother's life than she ever could have imagined. This is definitely a novel written for and about women, but what a book! What a writer! What a story!
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Summary: I enjoyed it!
Review: I'll have to admit that if I had read Divine Secrets with a critical eye I would not have enjoyed it as much as I did. I guess Ms. Well's novel spoke to me because I'm also going through mother/daughter problems and major life changes, too. I thought Vivi's character was the most developed and the most realistic. Sidda Lee seemed a little too insecure and wimpy for a typical 40 year old woman. I'm from the South so many of Vivi's quirks and characteristics seemed realistic to me. Ms. Well's style of blantantly pointing things out (like riding Lawanda the elephant means life is scary so hold on and enjoy the ride) irritated me but didn't keep me from enjoying the book. It's not classic literature, but it's enjoyable if you can identify with the South, southern women, female friendships, and the energy-charged mother/daughter relationship.
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Summary: Cutesy, over dramatic
Review: I could not relate to any of the characters, however, I thought is was a "nice" and "simple" read. It would probably make a better movie.
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Summary: How Do You Top This One?
Review: Ever since Ya-Ya I've been looking for a book to match its greatness!! It was by far the best book I've ever read! None of the books I've come across since have held up. Its just one disappointment after another. I guess I'll just have to wait on Ms. Wells' next masterpiece!
Rating: 
Summary: Feel free to throw this one away
Review: What a boring read, I couldn't even finsh this one. The writing was selfserving, sappy, and unbelievably cliche. What a bunch of fluff. I couldn't relate to any of these characters, especially the pathetic narrator. I can't believe Tom Robbins(he is one of my favorite authors)recommended this book.
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