1st Southern Reading Reviews In!

Here's a taste of southern reading going on in the challenge:

Fond of Books stands at the head of the class by being the first to read and review a southern book. The Color Purple had Fond of Books saying, "What a wonderful book. I had seen the movie many times and love it so I was pretty sure I would love the book too. After reading this I appreciate how well the movie stayed with the original story."

Diane from Nanners and Noodles read The Ballad of the Flim Flam Man by Guy Owen. She had this to say, "Some ideas are timeless, and I found I could relate to the cynicism of Jones about the greed of most men, the old idea that you can’t con an honest man, and the apparent lack of Christian ideals in some of our religious leaders, even though the con takes place over the television rather than in revival tents."

MamaT from Summa Mamas has completed Kaye Gibbons’s Sights Unseen. She had this to say, "The story of Maggie Barnes and her family as told by her daughter Hattie. Maggie is that woman known in her small North Carolina town as "that Barnes woman with all the problems." Her problem is mental illness--bipolar disorder in particular. A very clear-eyed look, in my opinion, of the costs of living with such a person, both to the person herself and to her family. The story has a twist--thanks to medication, electroconvulsive therapy, and psychiatric intervention, Maggie becomes well. The interesting thing is to see how that change affects her family. Gibbons has a gift for writing things so realistically that you lose track of the fact that you are reading a novel and assume that you are reading an autobiographical tale instead. Very good."

Lynne from Lynne’s Little Corner read Between Georgia by Joshilyn Jackson. She had this to say, "I loved this book! I had read GODS IN ALABAMA a short time ago and enjoyed it, but this one is much better. The characters are great - you can picture them in your mind and hear them speak. You can feel the love and pain between them. They had problems and took care of them in their own way - not always the best way, but they did what had to be done. They're strong people, although some of them didn't realize the strength that they possessed."

1st Southern Reading Reviews In!

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