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Rating: 
Summary: Being from the South...I wasn't sure how I'd take this book!
Review: Actually, I think because I grew up and spent the first 18 years of my life living in Texas...I could relate to this book more. Even though Kyle and I are around the same age, we come from two very opposite lives and we're two very different people; but I was absolutely able to bond with her through the book. I will have to admit though, I couldn't relate at all to the fashion sense and brand names (mostly clothing and shoes) mentioned on almost every page. I wear Levis, sweatshirts, and shoes bought at Sears...much of the name dropping regarding clothes went over my head! Don't let any of this fool you, the book is NOT a jab at southern people or living...it is more about Kyle's need to find herself and a place to call home. Overall this book was an easy, light read and it had me literally laughing out loud, especially during the water skiing episode!
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Summary: Mary Tyler Moore REDUX
Review: Affable, quirky, searching for a spot to call home when she is already there, Kyle Spencer's use of detailed descriptions and witty one liners - a combination of Southern charm and New York savvy - make this book a great read. Similiar to Hemingway's time in Europe, with a full champagne glass and a lust for life, Ms Spencer writes an interesting tale of a young woman with the best of intentions, trying to make it through this journey we call "life".
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Summary: Both Boring And Wrongheaded
Review: As a North Carolina native who spent 5 1/2 years working at a newspaper, I thought I would find something to enjoy in this book. Unfortunately, it [was not good]. Ms. Spencer's hackneyed detailing of the Wacky Southland was both unoriginal and just plain inaccurate. ..., Raleigh NC is just as homogenized and civilized as the rest of the East Coast.
Spencer's depiction of her dysfunctional family may have been more truthful, but she fails to create a coherent narrative from it. ...
Rating: 
Summary: Look out Ya-Ya Sisterhood!
Review: Few books make you laugh out loud as well as sob. This book does it! I liked it much better than "Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood." A story about a twenty something New Yorker struggling in the south to make it both personally and professionally is a page turner. And it is true! This is not fiction, but a memoir. Although some men might think this was a "chick book," my husband read it on my recommendation and enjoyed it enormously. There is a scene in an airplane that was so funny that I will never forget it. Parts about the author's father were incredibly touching. The book is well written and, like all of the best books, leaves you wanting more. I can't wait for Kyle Spencer's next book!
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Summary: she's gone country rules!
Review: I loved this book. It was funny, witty and insightful. Anyone who's been single, had to deal with a loony relative or two, and/or turned to their friends in times of crises (and that's all of us) will connect to Kyle Spencer's story.
Rating: 
Summary: What's the point
Review: I was interested in reading what a Northerner had to say about Raleigh. I wasn't too offended by her representations of Raleigh, but was very offended by her needless and painful descriptions of her family and of her own behavior. I don't think I'd want to speak to her if I were one of the family members she chose to excoriate. In the end, though slightly amused occasionally, I couldn't figure out what her point was in writing this book. Also, I was very interested to read in another review of this book that she graduated from the journalism school at Chapel Hill. Not exactly culture shock to move to Raleigh.
Rating: 
Summary: She needs to make up her mind!
Review: Kyle Spencer, an aspiring newspaper reporter, leaves New York City to work at the Raleigh (North Carolina) News & Observer.
I think Spencer couldn't make up her mind what book she wanted to write, "A New York Journalist Goes South", "My Dysfunctional Family", or "How to Find a Man". So she tried to put all three together, and doesn't quite pull it off, resulting in an uneven quality to the book.
Despite the "Dysfunctional Family Tree" at the start of the book, which was amusing, those parts of the book were the least interesting, and seemed almost tacked on. I would very much have liked to have had more about her experiences at the News & Observer, and the exploits of the Ten Thousand Angels Committee (four women looking for men for themselves and each other) were pretty funny.
She's a good writer, but she needed someone to force her to choose among three good themes.
Rating:
Summary: Take me away
Review: Returning home from the hospital after visiting a very ill father I noticed a book I had purchased the same night my father had his stroke. It had been forgotten on the passenger seat where it was tossed. I brought the book in with me hoping it might take my mind off my father. Kyle Spencer is a good story teller. Her observations and recollections of her experiences had me laughing out loud. If your a dreamer that has crashed and burned a few times here's someone to relate to.
Rating:
Summary: blah
Review: The premise of this book is preposterous...that Raleigh, NC is "country" or the "Heart of Dixie." The Raliegh-Durham area, (aka the Triangle)is a congested, urban and metropolitan locale which is headquarters to IBM and Duke University, and 60% of the population is relocated northerners. The neighboring town of Cary is jokingly referred to as the "Containment are for Re-located Yankees." The fact that someone could write a book about their experiences in Raleigh and refer to it as a journey to the South, and describe culture shock related to that experience, is just ridiculous. Maybe Jackson, Mississippi, or Gulfport, Louisiana, but Raleigh? Come on...
The three stars I did give the book are based on Spencer's description of being a cub news reporter, and are the only parts I enjoyed. If the book had just been about herwork experiences, it would have been so much better. Instead, a lot of it is whining about the trials and trtibulations of growing up a well-fed New Yorker, or silliness about her experiences in "the South." Whatever...
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Summary: Kyle is Vile
Review: The premise of this book is ridiculous -- since when is Raleigh, North Carolina, the "heart of Dixie"? But even more ridiculous: the notion of a memoir in which the author "made stuff up." Why did she have to do that? Because the truth wasn't interesting enough? In truth, even this exaggerated memoir isn't interesting enough, in large part because Kyle Spencer is too young to be writing a memoir and because she takes herself way too seriously and thinks way too highly of herself. Her delusions of grandeur are embarrassing to read. ("I pictured myself leaping onto some carpeted auditorium stage, preparing to accept the third consecutive Pulitzer of my young career.") And her writing is just plain bad. ("I thanked Susan B. Anthony for getting the women's lib ball rolling.") Her attempts at self-depracation ring false. Get over yourself, Kyle!
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