Rating: 
Summary: Sons & Daughters, Fish & Lambs
Review: A fascinating, funny, wise, and heartbreaking story, this one leads us on the quest for fathers, good, bad, indifferent, but always mysterious. Is your daddy the man in the dark, the man in the convertible, or the man who pulls teeth? Julianna Baggott's characters, the appealing and frustrated son Ezra, the appealing and frustrated mom Pixie, find each other as much as they find their fathers. Ezra, child of a Miss New Jersey and a closet gay, discovers the best of all possible worlds through his relentless honesty and his willingness to ask hard questions. Pixie, his beauty-pageant mom, finally comes to a similar resolution and a separate peace. Read this book. Everybody who has ever been caught in the middle of families needs it.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointment
Review: As a fellow author I always grab books by authors I've yet to read in the hopes of discovering a new favorite. Unfortunately, this was not the case with The Miss America Family or Julianna Baggott. I found the narrative boring, the dialogue unrealistic no matter how dysfunctional a family you come from and the entire story plot unattainable because I wasn't able to force myself to continue reading.
I would suggest Ms. Baggott hire a professional editor to help with her story telling technique, grammar usage and overall story construction. If nothing else, please learn what run-on sentences are and the proper meaning of words prior to their use. I am disappointed to see POD quality come from a trade publisher. The professional publications and reviews this received are laughable at best. Back to the drawing board please!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Story; fascinating dysfunctional family
Review: I absolutly loved this book. It was even better than "Girl Talk", if that is possible. Ezra is introduced first. He is the son of a "want to be Miss America" with problems of her own and father who eventually confesses to him that he is gay.In the beginning of the book we learn that Ezra's parents are divorced and his mother is remarried. Her husband is a poor excuse for a dentist who seems to like "smoozing" at the golf course with his cronies more than spending time with his family. Pixie the mother is full of problems. This develops into a sort of a fixation that includes participating in beauty contests when she was younger. I beleive all this is done so she can be admired by people but never touched. She does have a kind of connection with her son Ezra which is closer than most of her relationships in her life. I really felt sorry for Ezra's sister. She was kind of neglected in all of this emotional family mess. I would have liked to hear more about her. I think becuase the dentist was her father, Pixie inadvertantly ignored her. She resented her husband so much that she could not give the girl the love I think she craved. The revealed secret was hidden so well that I was even surprised by the outcome. I think what I liked most about this boof that even though it does have tis heartbreaking moments, they are infused with humor at the right moments. I think this makes Ms. Baggotts books all the more appealing.
Rating:
Summary: Better than Girl Talk!
Review: I found myself comparing this novel to the works of two of my favorite authors. The book is very well written and the scenes and situations that Ms. Baggott shows us could have been introduced to us by John Irving or Joseph Heller. The story itself, reminded me of the conflicted facade of Norman Rockwell's paintings. In his art, he gives us scenes from Main Street USA, that are no longer representitive our country today. To do this Ms. Baggott presents us a dysfunctional woman named Pixie Kitchey, from a sad/tragic upbringing, trying to win her way, (in beauty pagents), toward the great American or shall I say, The Miss America Family. Pixie's goal is to build an all-american life and all-american family. A family with perfect smiles, perfect picket fences and perfect names. One-hundred percent white bread normal in contrast to her own upbringing. Of course, events happen, and the realization that you can't change people has to occur in Pixie's mind in order for her to come to the conclusion of what normalcy truly is. The story is told from two points of view. One is from the perspective of the ex-beauty queen (Pixie) and the other is from the perspective of her awkward teenage son. Ms. Baggott is able to successfully speak in the son's voice and the reader is treated to her version of Boy Talk. The son, Ezra, gets to experience the great american crush/rejection that all boys go through. First love, first sexual experience and first separation from love is the most difficult. Ezra also gives the reader a nice perspective from the outside, looking into his mother's life. Why is Miss America Family better than Girl Talk? I loved Girl Talk....I gave it four stars here at Amazon. I found myself liking Miss America Family even more. The plot successfully twists and turns, keeping the reading interested in both narratives as well as all story lines. I am not a fan of the quirky character or quirky tale which authors often use to spice a book up. In this novel the characters are quirky, but REAL, and the situations within are believably interesting and far-out, often sad and hysterical. I totally enjoyed this book.
Rating:
Summary: Seemingly simple but emotionally complex story
Review: I love the quirky original characters Julianna Baggott creates. There's Pixie, a former Miss New Jersey who is now a dentist's wife. And there's Ezra, her 16-year-old web-toed son from her first marriage. Both have a keen eye for sharp observation, and view their world through a darkly comedic prism that cuts to the quick. I found myself chuckling as well as cringing as the images the author creates come fast and hard, creating a roller coaster of emotions in a seemingly simple but emotionally complex story that leaves little breathing space. This is a coming-of-age story for both mother and son. She has to confront the demons of her past; he has to come to terms with his gay father and the act of violence that his mother perpetrates against her new husband. Her memories haunt her; his are the basis for his new awakenings. As the book goes on, we learn more and more about the family and Pixie's mother, whose eccentricities are forgiven when her own past secret act of courage is unearthed. All this is set in the wasteland of suburbia, and every detail of description is unique, offbeat and fresh. I totally enjoyed this book and the probing insights that go way beneath the surface. Ms. Baggott has a gift of using humor and pathos with brutal honesty. It makes for good reading.
Rating:
Summary: Seemingly simple but emotionally complex story
Review: I love the quirky original characters Julianna Baggott creates. There's Pixie, a former Miss New Jersey who is now a dentist's wife. And there's Ezra, her 16-year-old web-toed son from her first marriage. Both have a keen eye for sharp observation, and view their world through a darkly comedic prism that cuts to the quick. I found myself chuckling as well as cringing as the images the author creates come fast and hard, creating a roller coaster of emotions in a seemingly simple but emotionally complex story that leaves little breathing space. This is a coming-of-age story for both mother and son. She has to confront the demons of her past; he has to come to terms with his gay father and the act of violence that his mother perpetrates against her new husband. Her memories haunt her; his are the basis for his new awakenings. As the book goes on, we learn more and more about the family and Pixie's mother, whose eccentricities are forgiven when her own past secret act of courage is unearthed. All this is set in the wasteland of suburbia, and every detail of description is unique, offbeat and fresh. I totally enjoyed this book and the probing insights that go way beneath the surface. Ms. Baggott has a gift of using humor and pathos with brutal honesty. It makes for good reading.
Rating: 
Summary: Miss American Family
Review: I've always thought that a good writer is supposed to SHOW you, not TELL you. This author bluntly tells you, again and again, what the characters are like. A good author lets you figure it out for yourself. I felt that the dialogue was unrealistic. People just don't talk philosophically non-stop.
Rating:
Summary: Miss America Family : Just Plain Depressing
Review: If the author's goal in writing "Miss America Family" was to depress her readers with the synical rantings of a mentally ill former beauty queen and her dysfunctional family, she succeeded!
I read this book in just 2 sittings as it is fairly large print and not excruciatingly long. I kept looking for the silver lining or the pot of gold to sweep away the dark cloud over the lives of these characters and never found them! For those who like dark journeys with no light at the end of the tunnel, I highly recommend
"Miss America . . ." for the rest of you, pass on this one!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent!
Review: In 1987, Ezra is the teenaged son of Pixie, a former Miss New Jersey. Ezra's father sees him once a year, and the rest of the time he has his loud obnoxious stepfather Dilworth and cute half-sister Mitzie. Because Ezra was part of Pixie's life from before Dilworth and Mitzie, he and Pixie have a strong strange bond. There are many secrets and omissions, and it all comes to a head when Pixie shoots Dilworth in the middle of the night. Like a Greek chorus, Ezra tells us at the beginning that this will happen, and the first part of the book is spent trying to explain Pixie and how she came to be a dentist's wife in suburban Delaware when she set out to be so much more. The chapters alternate between Pixie and Ezra for the entire book, telling of what is going on now and in the past from their own perspectives, trying to piece together what is going on in the present and why they are who they are. It's a sad book at times but not without its humor.
Rating:
Summary: The Miss America Family is dark, funny, beautifully written
Review: In The Miss America Family (now out in paperback), Julianna Baggott has blown past an already high bar set by her first novel, Girl Talk, which was both a literary success and a bestseller. You can read a synposis of the book in other reviews, and it's a great story--you'll want to know what the main characters Pixie the aging beauty queen and her sickly, sarcastic son Ezra have to say and what happens to them. So let me just focus on the incredible experience it is to read this book. It wakes you up, flings you out of your normal ways of seeing, and the familiar no longer seems quite what it was anymore. Here's a few lines from one of the many pages I've bookmarked: "The room is filled with white moths, blurry, so thick with wings that I can barely breathe. I would whisper to my brother now, if I could, that my father was not the enemy, that I was not a country to be saved. Stop here, I'd tell him, with everyone as they are. And I try to stop, too, looking at my kids, my husband, stumbling down the hall. We are all real, suddenly obviously ourselves in a room. The moths escape through open windows. And it's like looking through the curve of clear water in a glass jar. I slip into my body, the tight fit of being stitched into this skin." Do yourself a favor and get this book. Read it--you'll fly through it because you won't want to stop--and then read it again.
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