Review from Amazon.com:

Wells is a Louisiana-born Seattle actress and playwright; her loopy saga of a 40-year-old player in Seattle's hot theater scene who must come to terms with her mama's past in steamy Thornton City, Louisiana, reads like a lengthy episode of Designing Women written under the influence of mint juleps and Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom!. The Ya-Yas are the wild circle of girls who swirl around the narrator Siddalee's mama, Vivi, whose vivid voice is "part Scarlett, part Katharine Hepburn, part Tallulah." 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!"
Siddalee must repair her busted relationship with Vivi by reading a half-century's worth of letters and clippings contained in the Ya-Ya Sisterhood's packet of "Divine Secrets." It's a contrived premise, but the secrets are really fun to learn.

This book was requested by Synergy. I will bring take it to her at our next local Bookcrossing gathering.

RELEASE NOTES:

Brought to tonights meeting to give to Synergy.

Thanks Cindy! I accidentally saw the movie a couple of months ago and got sucked into it. I liked the characters and I figured that if I liked the movie and since books are usually better than the movie... :) I hope I enjoy it and maybe go on to read the other books in this series.

Mt. TBR is higher tonight. ;)

2005 Book #20: Divine Secrets Of The Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells
Like I mentioned before, I'd seen the movie and knew it was based on a book, so when I saw I might be able to get a copy from a BXer, I was pretty happy.

I was a little anxious that the book would be totally different from the movie or that I'd be really annoyed by some difference. In fact I found that the movie was fairly consistent with the book and other than some changes like locations and some changes in order of events it was fairly the same. I could give it to the screenplay writers on the changes they made. They were understandable and acceptable ones.

It wasn't completely the same, though, and I enjoyed getting more insight on some of the characters. This story is mainly that of the Ya-Yas and how they came and stayed together and why one of them, Viviane, has a difficult relationship with her daughter, Siddalee. One story about Vivi when she was young which I don't remember from the movie and I think maybe it might've been helpful in understanding more of her crazy behavior is the brief time she was stuck in a very restricted all-girls Catholic school.

Spoiler alert: Siddalee is on the verge of deciding to get married and she wants to understand her mother and the example she's given on motherhood and marriage before she makes that committment. The big secret in this book is that Vivi "dropped her basket" and was in a mental hospital for some time back when Siddalee was a little girl. She was put there when she when nuts popping too many pills trying to "cure" her alcoholism and she beat her children with a belt to the point of leaving permanent scars with the sharp point on the buckle. The children are never told where their mother went and Vivi refuses to talk about the whole event once she returns. All Sidda then thinks is that her mother hated them, beat them, and then left them for some time because they were bad children.

Her mother sends her a book full of pictures and other memorabilia at Sidda's request and the other Ya-Yas visit Sidda to explain to her some of the events of back in the day and why Vivi is the way she is.

Personally I think that Vivi was a self-centered and spoiled person and hence why she "dropped her basket" when faced with responsibility. But I suppose in the long run she did mean well despite those flaws and did love her children. She wasn't totally repulsive. I enjoyed the story and I'm thinking of someday in the future looking up the other books by Wells with these characters.

Mailing this to bookforyou in Toronto as a trade.

Received the book yesterday. Thanks for the trade. My daughter said the movie was good.

Great read about family relationships and how life gets in the way.

Good reading. Released in Buckhorn Ontario.