Rating: 
Summary: Watch out! This book will suck you in!
Review: I loved this book! I can't say enough wonderful things about this storyline! The characters and the town just come to life while you read it. I really enjoyed getting to know Dorothy's family and the other wacky townspeople. I had already read "Welcome to the World, Baby Girl!" and although I really enjoyed that book, I kept wanting to know more about the Neighbor Dorothy Show and the people surrounding her! I was so excited to start reading this book and realize it was just that! It makes you feel like once upon a time there really was a town just like Elmwood Springs, and it almost makes me wish I'd grown up in a small town, way back when...I did read this book in just one night (one very late night!) because it really does suck you in. Even though it spans a huge amount of time I really didn't want it to end! It had everything I enjoy in a good book and I think it would make a great movie. I smiled a lot while reading it, laughed out loud often, and finally even cried (which I don't usually do with the books I read). It left me feeling good and having a little different outlook on life in general!
Rating:
Summary: Thank God for Fannie Flagg!
Review: This novel was funny, touching, and poignant. Flagg manages to capture an American era, spending the most time writing about the 40's and 50's. As the novel progresses, the reader becomes more attached to the people of Elmwood Springs. The last few chapters had me in tears. This was a wonderful novel.
Rating: 
Summary: Ugh. Not Fannie Flagg's best, tiresome and superficial.
Review: I have read all of Fannie Flagg's books, and I was really looking forward to this one. Well, it was a struggle from beginning to end. If you've never read Fannie Flagg, don't start with this one. It starts with a gushing, cloyingly sweet description of life in the 50's, and then follows the lives of her many, interesting characters into the 90's without ever fully developing them. I still don't see the point of this book, except as an exercise in over-romanticized nostalgia for an America that never was. It completely overlooks the civil rights era. In some points, it's downright preachy. And in comparison to these supposed "good old days", it descends into a barely sketched out indictment of the meaninglessness of life today. Blech.
Rating:
Summary: A Wonderful Slice of Life
Review: I just loved this Fannie Flagg book-having read her others I was anxious to get my hands on Standing in the Rainbow! It was such a sweet story-you laugh, you cry and generally have a great time reading this book. It brought back lots of memories of growing up in the 50's and by the end it made me nostalgic and wishing life could be like that once again. I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a "nice" story-no sex, no violence just a good read!
Rating:
Summary: My New Family
Review: I usually enjoy Fannie Flagg's work. However, I thought that Standing in the Rainbow was an exceptional piece of work. Flagg's masterful story telling style weaved a lackadaisical plot through a magnificent cast of characters. I found myself wanting to absorb the book because I was reading about persons who began to feel like family. The book is not for people seeking a thrilling read or a fast-paced novel, but for someone who wants to ruminate a pleasant tale. I deem this one of the best fiction books I have read this new year. (I NEVER give 5 stars.)
Rating:
Summary: So-so
Review: This was my first exposure to Fannie Flaggs work and, while I didn't hate it, I can't say it had any kind of a plot and everything just fizzled out and died by the end. Some of the characters were enjoyable and some were just annoying. Every time I started to feel interest in where I felt the story was headed, it jumped to something less entertaining and then the story I wanted to know more about was summed up or skipped altogether. A very unsatisfactory read by the end. Did not live up the the potential I felt it had in the beginning.
Rating:
Summary: Flagg's American quilt
Review: "Standing in the Rainbow," by Fannie Flagg, is a novel that seems to me like a literary version of a patchwork quilt: Flagg takes a colorful bunch of stories and weaves them together into a warm and comforting whole. The novel tells the stories of a number of generations of folk living in Elmwood Springs, Missouri. The book begins in the 1940s and takes us through several more decades. Flagg deals with a lot of issues in this 500-plus page (in the paperback version) book: love, marriage, parenthood, loss, death, growing up, growing old, cultural difference, etc. Particularly juicy is her storytelling about American popular culture and politics. In the interlocking tales of these people she deals with a wide span of human relationships: mother/daughter, brother/sister, husband/wife, grandparent/grandchild, friends, political rivals, etc. The book is full of likeable and colorful characters, some of whom have surprising twists in their life journeys. Flagg is adept at showing how people live their lives in the midst of societal change; I also admire her skill at showing how ordinary folk can have revelatory moments in their lives. "Standing" is a big, lively, likeable novel. Although a number of sections could almost stand alone as independent short stories, they ultimately contribute to Flagg's larger story--the story not of one person, or of one family, but of an entire community and more. Although there is sadness along the way, it's a hopeful and positive book. Flagg writes with grace, humor, and--above all--compassion for her characters.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: I don't know words enough to describe how wonderful this book was. Towards the middle I thought it just kept going on and on, but Fannie Flagg has a way of introducing a reader to characters and then really making a strong connection between reader and character. I was in tears at the end of this book. I think this is her best book yet!!
Rating:
Summary: Standing in the Rainbow and enjoying every minute of it!
Review: Reading a book by Fannie Flagg is like sitting down with an old friend. "Standing in the Rainbow" tugged at my heart, causing the tears to flow...then the next minute I was laughing my head off. This is a wonderful, wholesome book that I didn't want to end.
Rating: 
Summary: great story, a little too shallow in detail
Review: This is a great story, but is a bit flat because the characters, while colorful, are not fully developed. The trade off is that you have so many characters which are all equally interesting, but in having a whole town to portray, you don't get an in-depth view of any one character; you don't get a chance to get inside their heads--there isn't a roundness to the characters. This is a long narrative with some dialog. Most of the details are given in a narration by Dorothy who is the local celebrity that hosts a radio program in the morning. All the juicy town tidbits are told here. But details are skipped, you simply learn that Norma got married, or the school year passed. I love the story, the nostalgia, the midwestern common sense, the Americana: All the food served at the VFW on July 4th is red, white, and blue; red beets, mashed potatoes, white-meat chidken only, blueberry pie with vanilla icecream.
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