Sullivan's Island: A Lowcountry Tale

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Summary: Look Out Siddons & Conroy
Review: I just finished Sullivan's Island a few minutes ago and raced to my computer to see if this wonderful author had any other books I could read. This book was SUCH a "southern", touching, hilariously funny, consistently interesting, hard to put down work of fiction writing art that I think I may read it again, starting tonight.

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Summary: No Anne Rivers Siddons
Review: I have had a whale of a time swallowing this book. I can't believe that the character, Susan, would be so nonchalant about her husband of 14 years leaving her for another woman, coming back to sleep with her one night, then going back to his girlfriend, and through it all she remains totally unemotional. Where are her deep feelings about a failed marriage even if she didn't REALLY love him? And puleeze! Enough novels where the character has a perfect, beautiful, loving, teen aged daughter who doesn't mind spending time with her mother and never gets acne or moodswings? Totally unrealistic. Give me Anne Rivers Siddons novels about southern women, any day.

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Summary: Riveting page-turner
Review: I chose this book to read during my spring break to South Carolina. It was wonderful, hilarious, poignant and moving... there were times I laughed out loud, and times I wanted to cry for the characters, who have been so richly created that they seem real to me. I could not put this book down. At times, it became a little 'soap-y',(but if you like soaps you won't mind) but there were enough twists and turns to keep me going- the flashbacks were great. It kept me going when I got stuck at the airport in Charlotte, when my UsAir flight was delayed and finally cancelled, and on the chartered bus to Savannah.

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Summary: Sullivans Island
Review: This is a wonderful book. I couldnt put it down. I dont think I can share my copy with anyone but keep it for future reading. I havent been this happy about reading a book in ages. It made me laugh, cry, feel, pray all the best emotions. If you havent read this book no matter what your tastes in reading is READ THIS ONE. I just hope Mrs. Frank will give us more stories about these wonderful people.

Rating:
Summary: "Sullivan's Island"
Review: Dorothea Benton Frank has provided us with an interesting read and lots of laughs. I couldn't put it down until completion, and then didn't want to put it down. What fun to be able to laugh at the characters while laughing at ourselves for similar situations and experiences! Lighten up "reader from Connecticut" - "Sullivan's Island" was a belly laugh at ourselves - perhaps you just didn't get it. Can't wait for her next book!

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Summary: Stunning
Review: Despite certain caustic Yankee comments, this is a WONDERFUL book about Southern women! I was raised in Virginia, not the South Carolina low country, but I can sure enough affirm that Dottie Frank has breathed pure life into the customs, language, mores, and insane rituals of the South. Truth to tell, I feel like I must have been raised in some parallel extension of the family depicted in the novel. I KNOW Susan's mother and father and grandmother! Susan and her sister Maggie are great characters, full of spit and vinegar and thick, stubborn backbones -- true steel magnolias. Which is a wonder, considering the simpering, ineffectual ninnies their mother and grandmother were. They overcame that, and their sadistic brute of a father, and taught themselves what NOT to be in their lives. This is a novel of strength and endurance, love and betrayal, and hope and optimism born of chaos and despair -- liberally laced with side-splitting humor and stunning imagery. I absolutely loved this book and hope to see more from this author.

Rating:
Summary: BLAH.
Review: I had interest in the book because Pat Conroy recommended it - and he is an author I have quite a lot of respect for. Sorry, this book was pretty much drivel in my opinion. No depth. Livvie was probably the most interesting character in the book. Not one I would recommend.

Rating:
Summary: Pure soap suds without the bubbles.
Review: I've had it with women coming of age in the south or anywhere else. What makes southern women different? Pu-leeze. Pure suds without the bubbles. Put this on your list of "Don't buys."

Rating:
Summary: A great read!
Review: This is the type of book I love, one that reaches out to grab you on page one and doesn't let you go! Ms. Frank's descriptions are so vivid that you can almost smell the ocean and feel the wind in your hair. What a wonderful debut -- I can hardly wait for her next book!

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Summary: Enough of Southern womanhood already!
Review: Between hard-drinking, oh-so-precious YaYas and a tribe of other shallow, self-absorbed women who grew older--note, I did not say grew up--in the American South and appear in fictional and semi-fictional literature (so called), it's hard to imagine there are any real people living in this country. I agree with the Connecticut writer who described the book as dreck. And I do think the errors are important; they make me wonder why the publisher was in such a hurry to get this book on the shelves that a little time and money could not have been spent for good copy editing.