Rating: 
Summary: Heartwarming and inspirational!
Review: Lin has been through a LOT. Yes, she's understandably bitter, but not overly so, and we root for her as she finds herself in this honeyed southern tale. This is a great book for curling up on the porch with your mint-spiced tea. Funny, poignant, and at times bittersweet, there is a lot to love about this book! I highly recommend it!
Rating: 
Summary: Not as good and could be..
Review: Queen Bee Of Mimosa Branch is the story of Lin Breedlove Scott, a recenty divorced woman who high tails it back to her hometown after 30 years to re-group and get on with her life after her husband leaves her for a stripper and in trouble with the IRS. While back home in Mimosa Branch, Georgia, she gets involved with a politcal campaign to remove the current Mayor and replace him with a local preacher. Lin also takes up with Grant, a man that she does not particularly like but uses to get back into the dating pool again. My favorite parts of the book happen to have been about Lins off the wall family.. her mother Miss Mamie, her father the General, her Uncle Bedford, and her Aunt Gloria. Queen Bee of Mimosa Branch started off light and funny but took a quick nose dive with uninteresting story lines and charactors.
Rating:
Summary: Travel Past Reality (Way Past)
Review: Sometimes we must travel past reality to really pinpoint where reality exists. The author's note at the beginning of the book, about fiction being "the lies that tell the truth" really makes the reader consider the reality of home, family, friends and the heart. The author carries us over the top (Way Over) time and again, but with a deep kindness and real meaning in every far fetched scenario. Keeping the FUN in dysFUNctional, she paints a bizarre cartoon of a family living in a small Georgia town, of small town politics (with a dose of religion for flavoring) and the journey of a broken heart and self discovery. Add in doses of peach ice cream and compassion, and you'll have an idea of what lurks beneath the yellow cover.
Rating:
Summary: Good thing it's not hyped as a romantic novel
Review: The book probably deserved four stars because it was an okay, even at times an entertaining read, and the female and family relationships were interesting, but the main character's relationship with her "romantic" counterpart was totally unbelievable, and I found that very irritating. I mean, let's get real. No one, whether in real life or in a novel, should have to live up to perfection. If a guy is honest and upfront and generally decent but wants to get laid without promising happily ever after, that makes him a jerk? And a fifty year woman acting as skittish as an adolescent virgin? Please.
Rating:
Summary: Queen Bee of Mimosa Branch
Review: The Queen Bee of Mimosa Branch focuses on Lin Breedlove Scott, who after 30 years of marriage to her first love, finds herself bitterly divorced. Now pessimistic towards all men, Lin returns home to Mimosa Branch, living with her parents, an aunt, and an uncle who isn't "with it" and a brother she has grown distant from. Lin's most pressing issue is to save enough money to move into the apartment about her parent's garage, where she can regain a bit of privacy & self-respect. She lands a job at her old place of employment, the local drug-store. Lin gets to experience small town life once again, and her story unfolds as she mixes with a cast of zany characters and gets mixed up in the local small town politics & scandals. Queen Bee of Mimosa Branch had a lot of potential, and had it's cute moments, but overall I felt it was lacking in character development. The story was an easy read and the writing was good, I just couldn't identify with the main character as much as I hoped.
Rating: 
Summary: Stupid book filled with cliches
Review: This book started out good for the first couple of chapters. It started to go down hill and by the time I realized how bad it was, I was more than half way done. I finished only because so I could discuss it with other people I know who have read it. In my opinion, the author seemed to be making up the story as she went along. Character developement was erratic (bringing in tattoos on a character that earlier was a matron type.) Plot was undistinguished. No real story line except man bashing. Certain characters dropped and then brought back in for no apparent reason except to end the story somehow. What a waste of paper!
Rating: 
Summary: Lots of fun
Review: This is a fun book. I loved the main character and her wacky family. I loved that it was about an middle-aged (or a little over) woman and thought it really protrayed the way, we are never grown up when we're around our family. I was a little bothered by the inconsistencies in Grant - the love interest but otherwise found this a perfect, light read.
Rating:
Summary: ladies wake up
Review: this is a great book. must read. it reminds women to keep track of ourselves during marriage, child rearing, careers and life. a serious book written with a tremendous amount of humor. Haywood Smith helps us look in the mirror at ourselves, our lives, and she gives us permission to laugh at the image staring back and the courage to improve ourselves.
Rating:
Summary: A heartwarming story--regardless of where you live
Review: This is the kind of book I love. It is filled with rich, complex characters that make you laugh at loud, and then sniffle into a tissue. Lin Breedlowe is easy to root for. Yes, she's definitely Southern, but you'll admire her strength, courage and honesty regardless of where you're from. A great read, with a satisfying ending, this book goes up on my keeper shelf. I can't wait for Ms. Smith's next book!
Rating: 
Summary: Skip this Steel Magnolia...
Review: This story sounds like it will be fun, but it becomes a Venus/Mars tirade that has a bitter twinge to it at times. The main character fails to grasp our empathy, respect, or even sympathy, and the plot doesn't always make coherent strides forward. Skip this unless you too have a lot of unresolved anger toward men.
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