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Summary: For southern girls who've lost their way up north
Review: ...this book is a must. Being from the lowcountry, this book immediately brought up memories of home, not only the places, but the people, the customs, the genteel nature of being a Southerner. Frank's dysfunctional Southern Gentry family was perfectly portrayed. I may be wrong, but I think other southern bells who've gone yank will find pieces of this story that mirror their own lives. One thing is for sure, she will make you a believer that the Lowcountry is a part of you no matter where you go. I can't wait to read Sullivan's Island.
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Summary: A Southern Treat
Review: If you have any love for the "Low Country" of South Carolina, this is the book for you. As one who has spent a lot of time in the "Low Country" Ms Frank brings to life the smells and sounds as well as the long history of family in the South! I thoroughly loved this book as much as Sullivan Island, her first book.
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Summary: A worthwhile read
Review: I was looking forward to Plantation after thoroughly enjoying (and recommending to several others) Sullivan's Island. I didn't feel this was quite as good as S.I., but still an enjoyable, fun, and sometimes emotional read. I would have to agree that the first 200 or so pages felt very LOOOONG and drawn out, but the rest is very good, with a particularly excellent last 100 or so. Well drawn, 3 dimensional characters and Ms. Frank definately knows how to make you feel a part of the goings-on. Read this one for fun-- you don't have to think hard, but it isn't completely fluff either.
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Summary: A Coastal Treat
Review: OK, so maybe I'm biased because I'm from South Carolina and knew where and what the author described. But even without the bias, this author did a jam up job. This is the first novel I've read by this author and was thoroughly impressed. And in reality I picked up the book at a grocery store because I needed something to read and it looked better than my other choices. But it turned out to be a great choice. Benton draws the reader in with her southern dialect and her conspiratorial tone. One of those novels , that although not highly suspenseful, the reader still has a tough time walking away. I highly recommend it to anyone from anywhere. If you haven't had the opportunity to visit the lowcountry in Charleston, SC read this novel and get an inside look of the beauty and culture. And if you've been a visitor to this beautiful area you'll enjoy this colorful tale even more.
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Summary: Another Excellent Read from Dorothea Benton Frank
Review: I was excited to find Plantation on the last day of my beach vacation and couldn't wait to get home to start reading it as I had thoroughly enjoyed Ms. Frank's debut novel - Sullivan's Island - and knew what to expect from this gifted storyteller. Plantation was another wonderful read, full of both endearing as well as dysfunctional characters who literally come to life on the page. I read a lot of novels and occasionally one touchs my soul; Plantation was such a book. I couldn't put it down and didn't want it to end. Hopefully we can look forward to more books from this very accomplished author.
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Summary: worth the wait !!!!
Review: WOW!!! What a great book! Ms. Frank made us wait for her wonderful story of a crazy southern family but it was worth every minute of it!!! I just didn't believe there could be another exciting story to tell after Sullivan's Island, but Plantation is terrific!!!From the very first page to the last word, it was truly the a most entertaining story that does not follow the typical plot of so many novels-thank you Ms. Frank for the spicy twist! I loved each and every character and felt a part of that crazy family. (A Southern thing). Reading this book is like taking a wonderful summer vacation!!!I reccommend Plantation to everyone that needs a little summer fun...
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Summary: Anyone with a sense of humor will LOVE this book
Review: This is one of the best books I have read in quite a while-any woman with a sense of humor and a sense of who she is will love this book-you don't even have to be from the south (but it helps). Ms. Frank and her contemporaries (Anne Rivers Siddons, Pat Conroy) have really struck a nerve and appeal to an audience that was once all but ignored-the new generation of southern women who struggle to keep it all together while honoring their histories.
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Summary: Another Can't Put it Down Read from Dorothea Benton Frank
Review: Caroline Wimbley could list a million reasons for untying herself from her flamboyant mother Lavinia's apron strings and escaping to New York City to marry herself off to the first unsuitable man who looked her way. She's hasn't felt close to Lavinia in eons--ever since Daddy died and Lavinia simply quit being a mother.While the passing yawn of years has not played out as passionately as Caroline once hoped, she considers herself well married, happily self employed, and deliriously happy with her bright, but somewhat academically challenged young son. Going home to the Queen of Tall Pines Plantation where she and her brother Tripp were raised did not occupy a high spot on Caroline's list of priorities. Fate rears her fickle head, cackles noisily, and sets her sights firmly on Caroline's life. A rare phone call from her brother Tripp suggests the possibility that mother Lavinia has taken leave of her senses. Caroline rushes home "to see about mother." From the moment Caroline sets foot on the grounds of the plantation,little appears to have changed. Everything is just as beautiful as she remembers. But Caroline soon realizes that surface appearances mean little. Unflattering family secrets lurk in every branch of the Wimbley family, and promise to wreck havoc in everyone's lives. The only that the only thing that is for certain is that Lavinia, while as eccentric as ever, is perhaps the only member of the Wimbley crew who is in full control of her sanity. Plantation is both bust-a-gut funny and chock full of low country wisdom. Ms. Frank's ability to entice her characters to get up and dance off the page makes this endearing novel more than just a story. It is a tribute to the south I grew up with, where what is said, what is done and what is felt seldom means the same thing. This tale is rich with southern familiarity, and our infamous tawdry secrets. Frank's spellbinding ability to spin a yarn nudges the reader gently along as we each come remember the ties that bind us to family. Anyone who's ever both loved and hated a mother will leave this story yearning to feel safe in Momma's care just one more time. Bravo, Dorothea Benton Frank. You done good, you did.
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Summary: Where was the editor?
Review: Why, oh why did Ms. Frank's editor let this book go out with the first 250 pages as they are? This would be a great book if you start at page 250 and get someone to tell you briefly what is in the first part. More people in the South will sympathize with Fannie Mae than with stuck-up Caroline. Siddion's had the right formula with classy-girl-from-poor-family. This looks like no-class family does a sudden and unbelievable turn-around.
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Summary: Southern Comfort
Review: "You know those pivotal moments in your life that you don't see coming? The ones you wished arrived with a timer going off so you'd know this is it! Well, when the phone rang in February, you couldn't have convinced me that six months later, Mother would be in "the box" and I'd be wearing her pearls, twisting them around my finger exactly like she used to do." So begins "Plantation" the tale of Caroline Wimbley Levine and her flamboyant mother, Miss Lavinia, "the ACE basin version of Auntie Mame." Add to that a practicing psychiatrist husband with more bats in his belfry than the Sistine Chapel, an alcoholic, gambling brother with a perpetually pregnant white trash wife and three uncivilized kids, and you have a book you can't to put down. But Dottie Frank, best selling author of "Sullivan's Island," was not quite satisfied with her cast of characters. She created an intelligent, organized female plantation overseer who sees that the entire family doesn't jump headlong into the Edisto River. Not done yet, the author then puts life into a young dreadlocked Kama Sutra lover who makes Caroline "twitch in places she didn't even know were nerve endings." Caroline has been living in New York City for fifteen years when she is called home by her brother, Tripp, who fears that Miss Lavinia, the Queen of Tall Pines Plantation, has popped her cork. As the only daughter, it's high time, so says her brother, that Caroline gets herself on back home to see about the situation. (Situations are what the Wimbleys call family trouble.) Like any good daughter, Caroline flies south to tend to Mama and by doing so, once again becomes involved in the dysfunctional family antics that sent her dashing off to New York City in the first place. Plantation is delightful. As a former South Carolina Low Country woman myself, Dottie Frank's words were so beautifully painted on the page that I could almost feel the cool, dark waters of the Edisto River and smell the dirt that surrounds it. Southerners will love the richness with which Benton Frank writes of family secrets, tantalizing the reader to become as enmeshed in their "situation" as Caroline, Tripp, Millie and the ever zany Miss Lavinia. This bright new star on the literary horizon writes from the heart. You will put the book down for only one reason: to wipe the tears of laughter from your eyes.
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