Rating: 
Summary: Pay attention people!
Review: Maybe I have a different view because no one said anything to me about the book before I read it. I read the reviews, and it seems some people don't get the point of the book. Sidda doesn't suddenly learn the stories of her mother by looking at photos, that's the point. She sees the photos and WE are told what the story is behind them. The entire POINT is that Sidda will never know these stories, and never share or understand the experiences. Yet, all the stories we learn of Vivi have something to do with the woman Sidda has become. Sidda is not whiny, she is searching to understand, something people usually wait too long to do. We are being shown that there are things in our pasts, and the pasts of those we love that affect us without us noticing. We are being shown that we can never fully understand the things that make up our parts and our whole. If you think the book is doing nothing more than discussing abuse, alcoholics, and craziness ... You Are Missing The Point!
Rating:
Summary: The things you never knew that make up who you are.
Review: This book shows us that there are things that make up who we are that we know nothing about. The stories we have never heard and pictures we can never fully analize. Good book for women who do and don't understand the women of their lives. And a good book for men who can't figure out why women are the way they are. It could teach a man that we don't necessarily know why we're like that either.
Rating:
Summary: Captivating, playful and tragic
Review: Rebecca Wells has spun a wonderful tale of mothers and daughters in the foreground of a highly unusual friendship of four southern women. This book has everything: humor, life lessons, wisdom and sadness. Don't miss this one!
Rating:
Summary: Loved it, loved it, loved it!!!
Review: I absolutely loved this book. I had such a hard time putting it down. The way Ms. Wells writes is fabulous! I am in a book club and can't wait to meet to talk about this book! I am just about to start reading Little Altars Everywhere and hope it is as good as Divine Secrets......I will let yall know!!
Rating:
Summary: Such a unique voice that pulls you in
Review: This book is so rich and unique. It tracks complex female bonds and the way they stretch and contract and bend, but never ultimately break. Rebecca Wells' narrative voice is half the pleasure of the book. Her descriptions of the South bring it completely alive -- you can taste the bourbon, feel the sticky heat, and smell the river.
Rating: 
Summary: Tedious and boring.
Review: Terrible read. Three-quarters of the way through the book I was still waiting to find a single character that I cared about. By the end, I wished I hadn't wasted my time with this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Wrenching, not rollicking. Deeper than the cover implies.
Review: Expecting a "you'll laugh, you'll cry" story, I read the book twice because my first read was framed by the cover illustration and what some other readers described. My first read was disappointing, until the last third of the book, which focussed on Sidda's struggle with the damage done by her mother. That felt real. So I re-read the book without the "you'll laugh, you'll cry!" expectations-I hadn't laughed-and I saw it as what it is: a story of denial and hiding painful multi-generational abuse behind early alcohol and outrageous behavior. None of it was funny. The loyalty the YaYa's showed to each other was touching and wonderful but for me, it didn't lighten the desperation behind it all. Some events seemed contrived because they were so outrageous: what happened on stage at the Shirley-Temple-look-alike contest, for one; nude swimming in the water tank, for another; and Buggy believing the re-colored Madonna was miraculous, for a third. Those events seemed like reaching for outrage and laughter, and for me, that didn't work. But on the level of a story about overcoming denial and abuse, the book is powerful and it does work. It's a deeper, more complex read than most of its raves give it credit for.
Rating:
Summary: a story that will make you cry, laugh, and touch your heart.
Review: A story that makes you "feel". You know these women are real. Pieces of them live within us all. This is life and experience and drama. What place could hold more of this than the deep south? You see into the heart of a women and into the heart of deep friendship bound by love, hate, and loyalty. I relished this book and would recommend it to anyone who would like to gain insight into the human heart, or anyone who loves to read an author with an eloquence and way with words.
Rating:
Summary: Boring, Petty, Poorly written, and Boring!!
Review: I have never hated reading a book as much as THIS book. It was given to me by a friend who absolutely couldn't say enough GREAT things about it. I have read 2/3rds of this book and wasted way too much of my life on it. Tonight this book will join the logs in the fireplace. I can't believe women can be this petty.
Rating:
Summary: Truly interesting
Review: I couldn't wait to pick the book up again, it was so interesting. Liked the second one better than the first. Am buying the set for friends for Christmas.
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