Rating: 
Summary: Appalling, badly written, cliched.
Review: ....and dull. I picked it up for summer reading and couldn't even finish it, it was such pre-packaged, formulaic, women's mag tripe. I only hope it made a good movie (in which they all wore, I am sure, 'crisp white linen'). I want my money back. (I only gave it one star because the cover was interesting.) Get a grip girls...read 'The Second Sex' by Simone de Beauvoir if you want to see how real women develop and support each other. Oooh, I know I sound like a cranky feminist, but honestly, I'm normal, a married mother of two. This book is just rubbish.
Rating: 
Summary: An entertaining read but a little predictable/pat
Review: I thought the book was a good read and I'm a little apprehensive about seeing the movie tonight. I thought the book was a little hard to believe in some areas, like the girls being involved in the Gone With the Wind Junior League Cotillion, for example.One scene in the book that is my favorite is when Genevieve takes the picture of Jack and Vivi while he is playing the violin and she is sitting on a tree branch listening. I thought it was touching that a mother should love the girl that her son was in love with. You hear too many adversarial stories of mothers and their son's girlfrieds or wives not get along. Plus I think Genevieve is an interesting character. I read Little Alters Everywhere too. Not that Viviane was a day at the beach in The Divine Secrets..... but I thought her character in Little Alters (alcoholic turned pedophile) contrasted with her character in The Divine Secrets was a bit of a reach. Also the scene with Jezie, the dance teacher and Sidda catching them together and feeling a little jealous that she wasn't a part of that scene was really far fetched. Most kids would have been freaked out and left it at that. It seems like Rebecca Wells tried cleaning up Viviane a bit for the Divine Sisters.
Rating: 
Summary: Tugs at the Heartstrings and Tickles the Funny Bone
Review: Rebecca Wells has written herself a masterpiece in "The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood", which through the lives of Vivi Walker and her daughter Sidda, addresses the complicated relationships shared by many a mother and daughter. From page one she had me hooked with her on-the-money descriptions of every emotion felt at one time or another by a woman, myself included. I honestly don't see how she could ever top this novel--it was THAT good. My suggestion? Make yourself some hot tea, curl up on the couch and get lost in Wells' Louisianna. I guarantee you won't be sorry.
Rating:
Summary: Great Summer Reading
Review: Divine secrets of the Ya Ya sisterhood is a great read. It is such a cliche, but I laughed and I cried while reading this book. At times it is overwrought, but the flashbacks to the Ya Ya's early years make Sidda's wordy internal dialogues easy to take. Anyone who is a daughter, a sister, a mother, a godmother, or a friend to another woman will relate to this book.
Rating: 
Summary: very poorly written
Review: I was excited about this book as I feel the subject of female friendship has not been well covered in books yet. Well, it still hasn't. This book annoyed me so much I couldn't keep my attention on it for longer than a few minutes at a time. The author does not know how to write a scene that lets us see how a character is feeling - instead, she tells us. It's like watching a movie where you'd have no idea what a person is feeling except for by the voice-over. And it's still not good enough. Half the time I had no idea why a person acted in a certain way, particularly Sidda.
Rating:
Summary: beautifully woven Southern tale..........
Review: This is a tale of womens relationships, daughters and mothers, sisters, girlfriends, and in the background, the men that weave their way in and out of the lives of these women. It is tragic and funny, aggravating and thoughtful. It deals with love and hate, acceptance and betrayal, and I really enjoyed it. Life in the South was so well woven, you can experience the heat, humidity, and the very fabric of the Ya-yas lives. This was definitely a 4 star read!
Rating:
Summary: A Good Read? Ya-Ya!
Review: This book is just a good read, plain and simple! A fair warning to anyone who picks up this book: it'll make you miss your girlfriends.
Rating:
Summary: An Oprahfied Gone with the Magnolias
Review: This book didn't completely stink, but I swear I just wanted to kick that Sidda. She's such a lump of whiney misery. And what, does she have a reverse Oedipal complex? My opinion: She's just an excuse for the author to write in flashbacks. Just for the record, I'm not a Southerner and I didn't like Steel Magnolias. So if you did, take my word with a grain of salt.
Rating:
Summary: Ya-Ya Yahoo!
Review: Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood stole my heart within the first five minutes and kept me going back for more. Born and raised in the Mississippi Delta, I really enjoyed all the "Southernisms" which only true Southerners would pick up on. Witnessing the true sisterhood and precious relationship between the Ya-Yas will make you want to call up your girlfriends and schedule a reunion! It can make you want to return to those vivacious, spirited, carefree years and do it all over again the right way....the Ya-Ya way! Wells will send any reader into a fit of laughter and then into a fit of tears. This book reached out, grabbed my heart, and squeezed it until I read the last page and finally had to close it. I would recommend this read to anyone wanting to relive those animated days of childhood, remember all the craziness of being a teenager, and reminisce that transition from girl to woman. I can't say enough about it!
Rating:
Summary: It's so much fun being a bad girl!
Review: The Rebecca Wells novel Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood is a poignant account of an adult woman's quest for emotional understanding. The story chronicles Siddalee Walker, who at the age of 40 is a successful theater director and bride-to-be. While enjoying her professional success, Sidda spills some very personal information to a New York Times reporter about her childhood growing up in steamy Thornton City, Louisiana. The Times article paints a rather unflattering picture of Sidda's vivacious mother Vivi, referring to her as a "tap-dancing child abuser." Vivi casts her daughter out of her life. Sidda, finding herself unsure of her pending marriage and torn over her tainted relationship with her mother, retreats to a friends' cabin to reflect. Her quiet get-away becomes a pool of emotional healing. Upon Sidda's request, Vivi sends a scrapbook with a note reading "return safely to me." The scrapbook is a half-century's worth of letters, photos and bits of memories that chronicle the lives of the Ya-Yas, Vivi and her three oldest and dearest friends, from childhood to raising their children. The Ya-Yas broke the no-booze rule at the cotillion, skinny-dipped their way to jail in the town water tower, disrupted the Shirley Temple look-alike contest and bonded for life because, as one says, "It's so much fun being a bad girl!" The memories that are revealed range from hysterical to tragic, but each moment in time helps Sidda learn again to love her mother and herself. The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood is a brilliantly written, compelling story about the intricacies of female relationships. Wells smoothly flips through the pages of time weaving one tale told by little girls, young mothers, grown daughters and life long friends. She is able to open the often touching, sometimes painful past with a dialect that is delightfully southern and reminds her readers that with knowledge we can learn forgiveness.
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