Monday
May012006
Summer Reading & The Ya-Yas
Monday, May 1, 2006 at 10:37PM
Summer Reading & The Ya-Yas originally appeared in The Rebel Housewife Column on May 2, 2005. It is re-printed here, in Rebel Reviews, May 2006, to coincide with publication of YA-YAS IN BLOOM in paperback. See The Rebel Blog for HarperCollins AuthorTracker CONTEST info to WIN A FREE COPY of YA-YAS IN BLOOM! (contest ends 05/15/06)
The Perfect Book. A Perfect Book. Is there any such thing? If I were single, I might compare the search for a Perfect Book to the search for a Perfect Man: Any number of intriguing possibilities exist for passionate one-night stands, or even longer affairs. Whether Mr. Right is Mr. Right Now often depends on time, place, and circumstance. So it is with The Perfect Book:
Time: The long summer ahead...
Place: On the beach, at the pool, in the backyard, out and about...
Circumstance: Summer Break with the kids home from school. The desperate need, but little opportunity, for escape--a few minutes to yourself, for yourself.
This is not the time for War and Peace, or anything that is going to take you too far away from what is going on right around you--especially if it gets really quiet and the kids disappear...
Rebel Reviews top recommendation for a light summer (book) romance:
Join the Ya-Yas! With three books and a movie, there’s enough to keep you going all summer long:
Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood: A Novel
What the heck is a Ya-Ya?
Perhaps an unfortunate choice in a title. I love the books, and identify so strongly with the Ya-Yas, especially Vivi Abbott (the crazy one). Still, I could never declare myself a “Ya-Ya,” or part of the “Ya-Ya Sisterhood” because:
a) I still don’t know what "Ya-Ya" means; and
b) The term is just too much for my Yankee down-to-earth sensibility, unconventional Rebel that I am.
The Ya-Yas are a fictional group of women, living, loving, laughing, and constantly in trouble in their hometown of Thornton, Louisiana. Vivi, Caro, Necie, and Teensy are childhood friends; the founders, and lifelong members of The Ya-Ya Sisterhood, which is, quite simply, a state of being. The Ya-Yas find each other early in life, recognizing kindred spirits. As is often the case, when you don’t fit in with everyone around you (or you simply don’t want to), there is great comfort and fun to be found in forming your own group, making up your own rules and mythology. For the Ya-Yas, their friendship was a means of rebellion and survival for four independent, strong-minded, free-spirited women coming of age in the rural South in the 1950s and 1960s. The Ya-Ya Sisterhood carried Vivi and her friends from childhood through grandparenting: interwoven lives and experiences; triumphs and tragedies; marriages, children, and growing old together.
Author Rebecca Wells has given us a nostalgic glimpse of an amazing group of women, vivid characters with compelling stories, at times heartbreaking, hilarious, shocking. The Ya-Ya Sisterhood is an ideal of friendship and community hard to find today. Our lives as women, wives, and mothers are so different: life is larger, faster-paced, more distant, more urban. That’s why it’s so fun to escape once in a while, and spend some time with the Ya-Yas.
Rebecca Wells is a modern-day publishing success story, although she’s taken a beating on Amazon Reviews for the latest Ya-Ya book, YA-YAS IN BLOOM, just released on March 29, 2005. More about that in a minute.
Most readers met the Ya-Yas in DIVINE SECRETS OF THE YA-YA SISTERHOOD, published by HarperCollins in May 1996. DIVINE SECRETS is about the Ya-Yas in later life, when they band together to help heal the rift between their larger-than-life ringleader, Vivi Abbott, and her oldest daughter, Siddalee.
I often wonder, with more than a little humor, about the things our children will inevitably blame us for--our failings and weaknesses as adults, as mothers, from a child’s perspective and carried with them to adulthood. That’s exactly what DIVINE SECRETS is about: mothers and daughters, and everyone else caught up in the chaos of that often-complicated relationship; all the innocent bystanders; and the ability to understand and accept the past and move forward into the future.
The movie version of DIVINE SECRETS came out in June 2002, with Sandra Bullock, Ashley Judd, and Ellen Burstyn. Despite the stellar cast, the movie was largely dismissed as a chick flick. When I finally saw it recently on late-night cable, it was powerful, perhaps because I can so easily identify with the mother now, with a headstrong, wonderful daughter of my own. Not for nothing, it was advertised as a “Kleenex Tear Jerker” presentation on TNT. I cried. I loved the movie.
The first Ya-Ya book, LITTLE ALTARS EVERYWHERE was published in 1992 by a small regional publisher, and then re-released in paperback with DIVINE SECRETS in May 1996. LITTLE ALTARS introduces the Ya-Yas as young mothers, told from varying perspectives, including Vivi, her husband, and her four children, among others. LITTLE ALTARS provides the background of the Ya-Yas, and develops the relationship which results in the conflict between Vivi and Siddalee in DIVINE SECRETS.
Re-releasing LITTLE ALTARS with DIVINE SECRETS was a stroke of publishing genius. True book fanatics know there is nothing worse than getting to the end of a great book...and turning the last page on characters you care about--people you have come to love. In her treasure of a book, SO MANY BOOKS, SO LITTLE TIME, Sara Nelson describes the literary love affair: “Where did it come from? How did I live without it for so long? I have to read and read, all the while knowing that the more aggressively I pursue my passion, the sooner it will end and then I will be bereft.” Bereft. I love that--and I get it. But when there is another book, full of those wonderful characters, ready and waiting--what a relief to jump right in and linger longer with your new friends! Which brings us to YA-YAS IN BLOOM...almost.
It seems to be a fairly recent phenomenon in publishing: Readers fall in love with a book, and everybody wants MORE. The publishers, being smart business people, are anxious to feed the hunger. We saw this dynamic in action with THE DA VINCI CODE, which quickly became a runaway best seller--and now you can’t get away from the Da Vinci Code, in no less than nine different formats of the book itself (blockbuster movie coming soon!), and all possible variations and spin-offs on the theme. Unfortunately, it’s not the development of a series or franchise. It is not well-planned or organized. It is a feeding frenzy to capitalize on a popular concept and make a quick buck.
This fascination and demand for MORE should come as no surprise, when you consider in other media, long-running television programs like Friends and Sex In The City. In our busy, impersonal society, we tend to know the characters in books, magazines, and on TV better than our own next-door neighbors. These media-created, pretend people provide the stability, continuity, and community we lack in our fast-paced, fragmented, long-distance modern lives.
Readers loved the Ya-Yas. So much, that it carried DIVINE SECRETS and LITTLE ALTARS EVERYWHERE to best selling status, and then on to a big budget movie production. The public wanted more. And that brings us to YA-YAS IN BLOOM, the third book, released with a huge promotional effort on March 29, 2005--the official “Ya-Yas in Bloom Day.”
I read the book, and I enjoyed it; although I was surprised, maybe even a little disappointed to find that YA-YAS IN BLOOM is not a stand-alone book, or novel on its own. It is not a continuation of the multi-generational saga developed so beautifully in the first two books, but rather seems to be a somewhat disjointed collection of anecdotes and stories, told from many different points of view. These individual essays, snapshots and memories brush up against events and characters from the first two books--almost as if this is the remainder collection of material that didn’t make it into the other books. It is choppy and erratic, jumping back and forth through time and different narrators.
At the same time, after DIVINE SECRETS and LITTLE ALTARS EVERYWHERE, I love these characters, love this time and place, and YA-YAS IN BLOOM is almost like visiting old friends, hearing more of their stories and background, getting to know them even better, and loving them more. It could be a disappointment, if you jump in expecting another well-crafted, complete novel like DIVINE SECRETS. But if you are looking for a light summer literary romance; if the time, place, and circumstance are right for a little escape to someplace familiar--and you know what you are getting--YA-YAS IN BLOOM could be just the thing. Go back and read DIVINE SECRETS and LITTLE ALTARS EVERYWHERE, rent the DVD for a rainy day, and enjoy some time this summer with the Ya-Yas.
The Perfect Book. A Perfect Book. Is there any such thing? If I were single, I might compare the search for a Perfect Book to the search for a Perfect Man: Any number of intriguing possibilities exist for passionate one-night stands, or even longer affairs. Whether Mr. Right is Mr. Right Now often depends on time, place, and circumstance. So it is with The Perfect Book:
Time: The long summer ahead...
Place: On the beach, at the pool, in the backyard, out and about...
Circumstance: Summer Break with the kids home from school. The desperate need, but little opportunity, for escape--a few minutes to yourself, for yourself.
This is not the time for War and Peace, or anything that is going to take you too far away from what is going on right around you--especially if it gets really quiet and the kids disappear...
Rebel Reviews top recommendation for a light summer (book) romance:
Join the Ya-Yas! With three books and a movie, there’s enough to keep you going all summer long:
Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood: A Novel
by Rebecca Wells
(HarperCollins, May 1996 - Hardcover, 368 pages)
Little Altars Everywhere: A Novel
by Rebecca Wells
(HarperCollins, Nov. 1998 - Hardcover, 240 pages)
Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood: DVD
(Warner Home Video, Sept. 2004)
Ya-Yas in Bloom
by Rebecca Wells
(HarperCollins, March 2005 - Hardcover, 272 pages)
What the heck is a Ya-Ya?
Perhaps an unfortunate choice in a title. I love the books, and identify so strongly with the Ya-Yas, especially Vivi Abbott (the crazy one). Still, I could never declare myself a “Ya-Ya,” or part of the “Ya-Ya Sisterhood” because:
a) I still don’t know what "Ya-Ya" means; and
b) The term is just too much for my Yankee down-to-earth sensibility, unconventional Rebel that I am.
The Ya-Yas are a fictional group of women, living, loving, laughing, and constantly in trouble in their hometown of Thornton, Louisiana. Vivi, Caro, Necie, and Teensy are childhood friends; the founders, and lifelong members of The Ya-Ya Sisterhood, which is, quite simply, a state of being. The Ya-Yas find each other early in life, recognizing kindred spirits. As is often the case, when you don’t fit in with everyone around you (or you simply don’t want to), there is great comfort and fun to be found in forming your own group, making up your own rules and mythology. For the Ya-Yas, their friendship was a means of rebellion and survival for four independent, strong-minded, free-spirited women coming of age in the rural South in the 1950s and 1960s. The Ya-Ya Sisterhood carried Vivi and her friends from childhood through grandparenting: interwoven lives and experiences; triumphs and tragedies; marriages, children, and growing old together.
Author Rebecca Wells has given us a nostalgic glimpse of an amazing group of women, vivid characters with compelling stories, at times heartbreaking, hilarious, shocking. The Ya-Ya Sisterhood is an ideal of friendship and community hard to find today. Our lives as women, wives, and mothers are so different: life is larger, faster-paced, more distant, more urban. That’s why it’s so fun to escape once in a while, and spend some time with the Ya-Yas.
Rebecca Wells is a modern-day publishing success story, although she’s taken a beating on Amazon Reviews for the latest Ya-Ya book, YA-YAS IN BLOOM, just released on March 29, 2005. More about that in a minute.
Most readers met the Ya-Yas in DIVINE SECRETS OF THE YA-YA SISTERHOOD, published by HarperCollins in May 1996. DIVINE SECRETS is about the Ya-Yas in later life, when they band together to help heal the rift between their larger-than-life ringleader, Vivi Abbott, and her oldest daughter, Siddalee.
I often wonder, with more than a little humor, about the things our children will inevitably blame us for--our failings and weaknesses as adults, as mothers, from a child’s perspective and carried with them to adulthood. That’s exactly what DIVINE SECRETS is about: mothers and daughters, and everyone else caught up in the chaos of that often-complicated relationship; all the innocent bystanders; and the ability to understand and accept the past and move forward into the future.
The movie version of DIVINE SECRETS came out in June 2002, with Sandra Bullock, Ashley Judd, and Ellen Burstyn. Despite the stellar cast, the movie was largely dismissed as a chick flick. When I finally saw it recently on late-night cable, it was powerful, perhaps because I can so easily identify with the mother now, with a headstrong, wonderful daughter of my own. Not for nothing, it was advertised as a “Kleenex Tear Jerker” presentation on TNT. I cried. I loved the movie.
The first Ya-Ya book, LITTLE ALTARS EVERYWHERE was published in 1992 by a small regional publisher, and then re-released in paperback with DIVINE SECRETS in May 1996. LITTLE ALTARS introduces the Ya-Yas as young mothers, told from varying perspectives, including Vivi, her husband, and her four children, among others. LITTLE ALTARS provides the background of the Ya-Yas, and develops the relationship which results in the conflict between Vivi and Siddalee in DIVINE SECRETS.
Re-releasing LITTLE ALTARS with DIVINE SECRETS was a stroke of publishing genius. True book fanatics know there is nothing worse than getting to the end of a great book...and turning the last page on characters you care about--people you have come to love. In her treasure of a book, SO MANY BOOKS, SO LITTLE TIME, Sara Nelson describes the literary love affair: “Where did it come from? How did I live without it for so long? I have to read and read, all the while knowing that the more aggressively I pursue my passion, the sooner it will end and then I will be bereft.” Bereft. I love that--and I get it. But when there is another book, full of those wonderful characters, ready and waiting--what a relief to jump right in and linger longer with your new friends! Which brings us to YA-YAS IN BLOOM...almost.
It seems to be a fairly recent phenomenon in publishing: Readers fall in love with a book, and everybody wants MORE. The publishers, being smart business people, are anxious to feed the hunger. We saw this dynamic in action with THE DA VINCI CODE, which quickly became a runaway best seller--and now you can’t get away from the Da Vinci Code, in no less than nine different formats of the book itself (blockbuster movie coming soon!), and all possible variations and spin-offs on the theme. Unfortunately, it’s not the development of a series or franchise. It is not well-planned or organized. It is a feeding frenzy to capitalize on a popular concept and make a quick buck.
This fascination and demand for MORE should come as no surprise, when you consider in other media, long-running television programs like Friends and Sex In The City. In our busy, impersonal society, we tend to know the characters in books, magazines, and on TV better than our own next-door neighbors. These media-created, pretend people provide the stability, continuity, and community we lack in our fast-paced, fragmented, long-distance modern lives.
Readers loved the Ya-Yas. So much, that it carried DIVINE SECRETS and LITTLE ALTARS EVERYWHERE to best selling status, and then on to a big budget movie production. The public wanted more. And that brings us to YA-YAS IN BLOOM, the third book, released with a huge promotional effort on March 29, 2005--the official “Ya-Yas in Bloom Day.”
I read the book, and I enjoyed it; although I was surprised, maybe even a little disappointed to find that YA-YAS IN BLOOM is not a stand-alone book, or novel on its own. It is not a continuation of the multi-generational saga developed so beautifully in the first two books, but rather seems to be a somewhat disjointed collection of anecdotes and stories, told from many different points of view. These individual essays, snapshots and memories brush up against events and characters from the first two books--almost as if this is the remainder collection of material that didn’t make it into the other books. It is choppy and erratic, jumping back and forth through time and different narrators.
At the same time, after DIVINE SECRETS and LITTLE ALTARS EVERYWHERE, I love these characters, love this time and place, and YA-YAS IN BLOOM is almost like visiting old friends, hearing more of their stories and background, getting to know them even better, and loving them more. It could be a disappointment, if you jump in expecting another well-crafted, complete novel like DIVINE SECRETS. But if you are looking for a light summer literary romance; if the time, place, and circumstance are right for a little escape to someplace familiar--and you know what you are getting--YA-YAS IN BLOOM could be just the thing. Go back and read DIVINE SECRETS and LITTLE ALTARS EVERYWHERE, rent the DVD for a rainy day, and enjoy some time this summer with the Ya-Yas.