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Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood

by Rebecca Wells (Goodreads Author)

3.7 of 5 stars 3.70 · rating details · 311,455 ratings · 2,960 reviews

When Siddalee Walker, oldest daughter of Vivi Abbott Walker, Ya-Ya extraordinaire, is interviewed in the New York Times about a hit play she's directed, her mother gets described as a "tap-dancing child abuser." Enraged, Vivi disowns Sidda. Devastated, Sidda begs forgiveness, and postpones her upcoming wedding. All looks bleak until the Ya-Yas step in and convince Vivi to...more

Paperback, 383 pages

Published December 7th 2004 by Harper Perennial (first published January 1st 1996)

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Community Reviews

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Apr 20, 2012 Eva rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone who thinks Steel Magnolias is the best movie EVER

I am so tired of this sort of storyline. A group of Southern women who form a timeless bond of woman-ness and Southern-ness and triumph in the face of all hardship because they are delicate as blossoms yet strong and fierce.
That said, when entering a genre so well-covered and sticky sweet, one must do something to make one's work stand out. I believe Rebecca Wells does an above-average job at this, and her book was a fun and easy read. It was hardly ground-breaking, nor did I find it moving, an...more

18 likes · like · see review

Jan 27, 2008 E rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: novels

Rebecca Wells can think up a few succulent stories, but her writing is absolute fast-food. It left me depressed to think that women are encouraged to read so-called "chick lit" on the basis that they only need a few sentimental tales about love, friendship, and/or family to satisfy them, no matter how infantile the writing style or half-baked the arguments. Of COURSE the story had to end with a big white wedding! That signifies catharsis in every woman's life, right?

By the end of the book, I wa...more

38 likes · like · see review

Apr 11, 2008 Traci rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: imperfect mothers and daughters

Recommended to Traci by: almost everyone

When I was pregnant with my oldest child, a girl, I had a dream. In my dream, I was in the hospital, postpartum, holding not the one child I knew that I had been pregnant with . . . but two children. Both girls. One of my baby girls was quiet, observant, peaceful. She had big, open eyes that reflected her big, open heart. The other child was physically larger than the other baby and it's complete opposite. Ugly, angry, needy. I sat there holding both babies in their swaddling clothes while the o...more When I was pregnant with my oldest child, a girl, I had a dream. In my dream, I was in the hospital, postpartum, holding not the one child I knew that I had been pregnant with . . . but two children. Both girls. One of my baby girls was quiet, observant, peaceful. She had big, open eyes that reflected her big, open heart. The other child was physically larger than the other baby and it's complete opposite. Ugly, angry, needy. I sat there holding both babies in their swaddling clothes while the one cried and demanded and writhed . . . and the other lay in my arms quietly observing . . . simply taking it all in. I had what has now become the all-too-familiar feeling of being in over my head - lost even before I had begun. And then, in my dream, my own mother walks into the room with the also all-too-familiar glower she has reserved for me for as far back as I can remember. The look that says "You don't deserve this".

I've never forgotten that dream and until recently, couldn't figure it out. Years later, I do in fact have two daughters and a son . . . born not in that order. My two daughters are almost a decade apart in age the older (bigger) one is definately NOT the noisy, demanding one. No . . . she's definately the open, loving one. (An old soul if ever there was one.)

What does any of this b.s about my dream have to do with Divine Secrets?

Basically, everything.

I have since sorted out this dream . . . my oldest daughter is now 17. A young woman. Just three years younger than I was when I carried her in my womb and dreamt of her and my mother and that demanding other child that needed so damn much all the time.

In the first few pages of Divine Secrets, you are plunged into the life of an interesting, lively young woman and her relationship with her mother. All the bad behavior, jealousy, rage, and hidden wounds.

When I read this book in 2002, I cried because I got that woman's rage towards her mother. I was that woman.

Now I find as my own daughter enters adulthood . . . I identify with the pain of that mother.

By the way, that demanding baby in my dream was me and frankly, that demanding baby in my dream is really a lot of us mothers to some degree or another. Raising our own daughters while trying to finish the job of raising ourselves where our mothers might have failed. Obviously, that analogy doesn't apply to everyone . . . but it's the link between that dream of mine and the thread of understanding that evolves in this book that are the same.(less)

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Jul 13, 2008 Debbie Petersen rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: People who do not read books but would like to think they read one

Shelves: absolute-drek

I think Vivi WAS a tap-dancing child abuser. Any discussion of this fact ends at the "being whipped with the belt" scene. Vivi had no right to be enraged when this fact comes to light--she should have been embarrassed, yes. Her daughter arguably should not have revealed this dirty laundry but should have worked it through with her mother privately.

According to this book, a scrapbook of silly adventures with Vivi's zany friends makes that behavior forgivable...not an apology or explanation from V...more

28 likes · like · see review

Jul 19, 2008 Jennifer rated it 2 of 5 stars

I'm having a hard time deciding if I liked this book or not. On the surface, not so much. About 30 pages in, I wasn't sure if I was going to make it through, or if I was going to go insane if I saw the word "Ya-Ya" one more time.

There were some things that I liked about it. Friendship that endures, closer than blood. Knowing there's always someone there in your corner, and they've been there your whole life. Daughters learning that Mom had a life before she became a Mother, and has a separate id...more

13 likes · like · see review

Aug 29, 2007 Deb rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: bookclub

When the whole Ya-Ya craze was going on, my book club decided we'd better read it to see what all the fuss was about. In the end, we had to take a vote ("ya-ya" if you liked it; "no-no" if you didn't). I fell into the "no-no" group.
I found it disturbing that hordes of women were flocking to this book that is really about completely dysfunctional families and marriages and a really unhealthy attachment to friends from the past. It made me wonder what's going on with women that this kind of co-de...more

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Dec 31, 2008 Dixie Diamond rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: emphatically, NOBODY.

Shelves: louisiana, fiction, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1990s

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. To borrow an expression from the book, this sucker is "Trés ya-ya-no." How can a writer so obsessed with small town aristocracy manage to slip in so many references to peeing in one's pants?

I never manage to abandon books once I've started them, even when they're utter and total tripe. Thank goodness this reads fast so I didn't waste any more of my life on it!

I seem to be missing the Chick Lit Gene. I just flat-out do not understand, or identify with, this kind of writing. I'm not like this. My...more To borrow an expression from the book, this sucker is "Trés ya-ya-no." How can a writer so obsessed with small town aristocracy manage to slip in so many references to peeing in one's pants?

I never manage to abandon books once I've started them, even when they're utter and total tripe. Thank goodness this reads fast so I didn't waste any more of my life on it!

I seem to be missing the Chick Lit Gene. I just flat-out do not understand, or identify with, this kind of writing. I'm not like this. My friends aren't like this. My mother, thank Heaven, is not like this. Our lovely Louisiana friends are not like this. I don't know anyone who is like this. I'm beginning to suspect that nobody is like this, except in pulpy pseudo-literature written by women with juvenile Scarlett O'Hara fantasies. I would be ashamed to be this kind of "feminine."

This is the story of Sidda, a dull, spineless, immature, 40-year-old with no identity of her own, and her malicious, self-absorbed, alcoholic, racist, mother, Vivi, who appears to be taking out on everyone around her the frustrations of a lifetime of being a legend only in her own mind. One gets the impression that Vivi needed the Ya-Yas so she could be notorious somewhere, since she doesn't have the class or discipline to accomplish anything of genuine value.

It's badly written, the dialogue is clumsy, and I think it must hold some kind of world record for wallowing in self-pity. Wells is also an unbearable "reference-dropper" ( River Road Recipes , interspersed bayou French, Cajun fiddle, Community Coffee, etc.). Apparently the "divine secret" is that this bunch of self-centered superannuated teenagers chose to flash-freeze their high-school lives (and mentalities) at the expense of emotional adulthood, their marriages, and their children. Yeah, there's going to be drama and hardship in your life if you react to every little thing as if it's a catastrophe and use it as an excuse to drink and dope yourself into a stupor. "Complex" needs to stop being a literary euphemism for "manipulative, self-serving, toxic, and narcissistic." Ironically, Vivi is the least likable and least interesting of the four Ya-Yas, though she's supposed to be the luminary.

I guess it says something that Ms. Wells has lived in Washington state for the past 25+ years: If she loved Louisiana so much, why did she leave and then write boring, mindless, novels about it?(less)

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Jan 30, 2008 Brandy (aka Marsden) rated it 5 of 5 stars

My mother and her Ya-Ya’s were called the sisters of Beta Sigma Phi sorority in Charleston S.C. I grew up on the marshes watching them swing dance, shuck oysters, and throwing what always seemed like a never ending festival that celebrated life. They did community work and supported the local theatre, but mostly they just had a good time. I grew up in the whirlwind of color and laughter that now seems only like a distant dream. Momma passed 12years ago and I don’t think I will ever be the same....more

15 likes · like · see review

Jul 05, 2007 Cheri rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: ick

Seriously not my cup of tea. Cutsey language, sentimentality run amok, and a deep sense of nostalgia for times that, well, I couldn't possibly feel nostalgic for. I'm not sure how an abusive mother is supposed to be funny or colorful, nor how transferring your disfunction onto you children is to be held up like a badge of honor. Maybe I needed to have crazy parents to understand it.

8 likes · like · see review

Nov 28, 2008 Jennifer rated it 2 of 5 stars Recommends it for: People who like Lifetime movies.

Shelves: 2002, chicklit, fiction

I felt like this was a better story than Little Alters Everywhere - but really it was just a Part 1 and a part 2. I had a hard time with the abuse and alcoholism - just like I did in the first book. I think if I hadn't watched the movie first I would never have commited to reading these two books - since they seem to be scrunched together for the movie.

I have no desire to read any further in this series. The writing was good and the characters believable - but I felt like it was just depressing...more

2 likes · like · see review

Jun 14, 2008 Embee rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Women who cherish their longtime relationships with best girlfriends.

Grab a girlfriend, drink mint juleps and toast to sisterhood! This book shares all the details of the close relationships girlfriends share.

4 likes · like · see review

Apr 07, 2012 Erika rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: bct, womens-fiction, meh, solo-books-read, to-watch

This book may be entertaining for someone who likes gossip so much, because here you can get to know all the juicy events that happened in the youth and life of four women who were best friends and thought they were absolutely amazing and called themselves the Ya-Yas.

So, this story starts when a Petite Ya-Ya, that's how the Ya-Yas called their daughters, (not so petite anymore) let escape in an interview with the New York Times that her mother, the awesome Vivi, used to hit her. Vivi becomes so...more This book may be entertaining for someone who likes gossip so much, because here you can get to know all the juicy events that happened in the youth and life of four women who were best friends and thought they were absolutely amazing and called themselves the Ya-Yas.

So, this story starts when a Petite Ya-Ya, that's how the Ya-Yas called their daughters, (not so petite anymore) let escape in an interview with the New York Times that her mother, the awesome Vivi, used to hit her. Vivi becomes so mad at her, because this piece of dirty laundry has affected her reputation so much, and stops talking to her. Now her daughter is working at the theater and for some reason (i don't really remember) she asks her mother to help the theater, not her, with a book with many pictures and anecdotes and stuff from her past and the Ya-Yas', which she guards jealously. So her mother accepts, and with this book called the divine secrets, let's her enter in the past and adventures she had with the Ya-Yas since they were 8 years old.

These ladies thought of themselves like divas from a very little age, and now that they were old, it was no different. They sometimes use some words in French to feel they are very nice and create their own words like something is Ya-Ya if it's nice and cool, or something is Ya-Ya-No if it's not. So, occasionally they'll say things like "That's très Ya-Ya-No" or "Let's go, S'il vous plaît". French is not a language i particularly like, so maybe you can see my annoyance with this aspect.

The rest of the book continued to tell stories of the pictures and things she was seeing in the scrap book, and it contained a ton of letters she and her mother kept writing to each other back and forth. So, if you really feel intrigued enough to know all of the adventures and things the Ya-Yas went through, then maybe it is an ok book for you. But, for me, I don't care. I started reading this with high hopes that maybe it would be interesting, that it could surprise me, until those hopes started to fade away and left me feeling with no desire to carry on in the least. Something like this, see:

I don't fucking care what these "fabulous" women did, and the fun they had, and how they were dressed, and how they did their hair or anything. So i didn't bother to finish it.

I picked this book to read along with someone in a buddy read, so i was trying to force myself to finish it, but then i realize, what is the point in that? i read enough of the book to understand i don't care for it, and there are plenty of other books i want to read to waste my time reading something i am not enjoying. So, i just skimmed through the book until the end to give me a basic idea of everything that followed... None of my interest.

I didn't hate it, though. This isn't a book i absolutely despise or anything. It's just a story i didn't find any interest on.
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Mar 25, 2008 Alissa rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction-novel

I would give this book a PG-13 rating for language and a couple crude scenes- which were mild, but suggestive.

The entire book discuss' in detail the importance of few key character relationships. Getting to the MAIN relationship, in my opionion, and setting up the climax of the book is what took a while. About half way through it really hit home and I felt deeply connected to the story(s), and the characters. Eventhough, I was raised in a very different way, I felt that I could empathize and re...more

2 likes · like · see review

Apr 02, 2011 Caity rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: humor, novel, social-commentary

Divine Secrets is spectacular! Definitely pass on my reccommendation! Also, guys, I think you ESPECIALLY need to read this book if you're at all confused about women. It will give you a spectacular insight. Modern classic. Highly reccommended. Also, if you get the opportunity, watch the film. Its incredibly different from the book, but that's how these things go. Still a spectacular movie.

2 likes · like · see review

Mar 07, 2008 Jo rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: all-time-favorites, southern-lit, own

oh i loved this book! i have a very complicated & hurtful relationship with my mother and though a cliche, i could well relate to that aspect of the book! i also love the movie, but i love the book more! (i read it just before the movie came out!) i've also battled sever depression and this book (and movie) is near to my heart. overall, the details, descriptions & relationships are just amazing! ms. wells has lyme disease and has had a horrible past few years (which is why i think she ha...more

6 likes · like · see review

Jan 09, 2009 marissa rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: daughters who are angerballs when it comes to ther oppressive, wonderful mothers

Much of this book I found really aggravating -- the unthinking privilege of the Ya-Yas, their total narcissism, the constant and tedious drama -- and yet I found myself looking forward to my lunch breaks so I could read it. Despite the foreignness of the situations and location, the class and race, there was still enough of my mother and me in Vivi and Siddalee Walker to make the book resonate with me. In the end, that's what I enjoyed (not quite the right word -- you know what I mean, though) m...more

4 likes · like · see review

Mar 01, 2009 Elsa Binder rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is one of my favorite books. I just love it.

1 like · like · see review

Feb 07, 2009 Paula rated it 2 of 5 stars

self-pitying, self-destructive characters.

4 likes · like · see review

Mar 08, 2009 Betsy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: q3-2009

The Dicine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. Written by Rebecca Wells, tells the story of a mother and daughter, the mother belonging to a sisterhood, or secret society of women. Theese women did daring things and were all from the south. The daughter doesn't understand the bond theese women share and struggles getting along with her alcholic mother. The author uses direct dialogue and letters written by the charectors to tell the story. This book in my opinion, reveals the hidden relationship be...more

2 likes · like · see review

Mar 03, 2009 Maisie rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: english-12

Plot Summary
Siddalee Walker is a theater director in New York. The novel starts off with Sidda and her mom exchanging very harsh words, over the phone, on a recent newspaper article written about Sidda’s childhood experiences with Vivi walker as her mother. On an already strained relationship there is a new level of division between them. As well, Sidda tells her fiancée that she needs to postpone their plans of marriage because she is unsure if she can love someone properly. As the story contin...more Plot Summary
Siddalee Walker is a theater director in New York. The novel starts off with Sidda and her mom exchanging very harsh words, over the phone, on a recent newspaper article written about Sidda’s childhood experiences with Vivi walker as her mother. On an already strained relationship there is a new level of division between them. As well, Sidda tells her fiancée that she needs to postpone their plans of marriage because she is unsure if she can love someone properly. As the story continues, Sidda convinces her mother to send her a very special scrapbook documenting the life of her mother and her sisterhood called the Ya Ya’s. The Ya Ya’s are a group of 4 young ladies that have been best friends since a very young age. Sidda escapes to a secluded house, leaving her work and fiancée behind. She goes through the scrapbook and we are shown the little stories behind all of the pictures, letters, and other memorabilia. Sidda slowly discovers what her mother’s life was like and some of the things that she went through. Vivi’s mother was abusive and treated her very poorly and even sent her to Saint Augustine’s, a catholic correction facility. As these things are revealed to Sidda, she slowly forgives her mother for all of the wrong things she did to her. After a visit from the other three Ya Ya members, Sidda decides to go visit her mother and make things right. Her fiancée comes along as well and once Sidda is reconciled to her mother she ends up getting married in her parent’s field of sunflowers.

Personal Response
I vote No NO to Ya Ya’s. This novel was incredibly sad and depressing. It was so horrible to re-live the events of one bad generation to the next through Sidda and Vivi’s lives. There was a lot of drinking, abuse, hate, and lust, and in the end there really were no redeeming elements to counter these. It was a good guide on how not to live, raise children, love, treat your husband, treat your friends and much more. I found myself constantly wondering when it was going to get better but it never really did except in the last chapter when the two fornicators finally got married! The only other thing that I mildly appreciated was the way the of the Ya Ya sisterhood. They were always there for each other and took care of each other’s families when they couldn’t or needed help. With this said, it was also too bad the things that they let each other do to themselves and to their kids. I hope that this book is not based on any true story; sadly I think that this story has been others’ and is not just a fictional novel. Overall it was a sad book and I would only recommend it for people who have nothing better to read.

Favorite Quotes
When Sidda’s fiancée finally meets Vivi their conversation is as follows, “I tried to be the best momma I could,” Connor replies, “How did that go?”, Vivi replies, “No so hot.”

This quote is from when the four young girls have their naming ceremony at the beginning of their sisterhood, “Teensy Melissa Whitman I declare you, Princess Naked as a Jaybird, Caro Eliza Bennet I declare you Duchess Soaring Hawk, Necie Rose Kallaher I declare you Countess Singing Cloud, and I Viviane Joan Abbott am hereby and forever Queen Dancing Creek”.
Here is a quote in a letter from Vivi’s mom to Vivi, “Mother superior wrote me about her session with you last week. Because she is concerned with your spiritual welfare, she has decided that it is God’s will that from this day forward you will be known only by your saint name: Joan.”
Here is an emotional quote from when Vivi finds out her boyfriend is dead, “It’s Jack” he said, the weight of his hands heavy on her shoulders. “You’re crazy”, Vivi said, giving a small laugh, “You’re joking”.
In this quote we see more emotion from Sidda’s father, after the wedding ceremony, than in the whole book combined. As Sidda wipes away tears from her father’s eyes he says, “I hope your marriage is a good one, Baby Doll.”

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Jan 03, 2009 Amy rated it 3 of 5 stars

I always find myself attracted to novels that weave through generations, digging up colorful stories of the characters' pasts - allowing the reader to see them at different stages, thus making their present stage more understandable. Thus, when Divine Secrets took this route, I found it to be an engaging novel, leaving me almost breathless in some scenes, opening up tear ducts in others. The lives of Vivi and the YaYas takes shape immediately - luring us in, keeping us close as we move from page...more

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Dec 22, 2008 Salwa rated it 2 of 5 stars

Someone gave me this book many years ago. It sat on my shelf. I almost gave it to Housing Works in a sweep of books to donate, but saved it at the last minute. So, I decided to finally read it as a sort of guilty pleasure. Well, part of it actually surprised me in its sensitivity, true-to-life descriptions, and gripping story line. Unfortunately, that only made up half of the book---the half about the group of girls, the Ya-Yas growing up. The other half, about a daughter of one of the Ya-Yas, w...more

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Sep 15, 2007 Catherine rated it 3 of 5 stars

Some of the mother-daughter stuff here was intense. The impact of the mother's mental illness, you could see how it reverberated throughout the daughter's history and mental landscape. There is a lot of joy in this book, but it probably became a hit because the writing was fairly poignant too. My favorite scene from the book is the lesson her mother teaches when the daughter realizes "too late" that she really does want to fly, and how she can make things possible if she really wants to. =)

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Apr 13, 2013 Lorraine rated it 5 of 5 stars

In my opinion, there were some things to sift through, but over-all this was an excellent story about mother-daughter relationships with lots of emotion, set mostly in Louisianna.

Here's a quote from(Vivi) "Well, I'm not a goddamn frog…. You can’t figure me out…...I can’t figure ME out. It’s life Sidda, you don’t have to figure it out, just get on the beast and RIDE! (Why overanalize life, just live it!)

The women in this book are great characters, sure some are dysfunctional, but absorbing to say...more

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Mar 17, 2013 Sarah Goodwin rated it 2 of 5 stars

This might be a book that you have to read more than once to really get. Having said that, giving how I felt as I turned the final pages, I may not be reading it again.

I picked this up because my mum was raving about the film, which I have not seen. I quite like books with the same themes/setting as this, and still, I felt reluctant to start reading it, I don't know why.

Anyway, there were parts that I enjoyed, the parts where the Ya-Yas were younger were my favourites. I enjoyed the little stor...more This might be a book that you have to read more than once to really get. Having said that, giving how I felt as I turned the final pages, I may not be reading it again.

I picked this up because my mum was raving about the film, which I have not seen. I quite like books with the same themes/setting as this, and still, I felt reluctant to start reading it, I don't know why.

Anyway, there were parts that I enjoyed, the parts where the Ya-Yas were younger were my favourites. I enjoyed the little stories drawn from the book of divine secrets.

I didn't enjoy Sidda's perspective at all, possibly because she was so...wet. She wasn't an interesting or realistic character, at least for me. She'd had a lot of therapy and walked around looking at how pretty the moon was, and crying and questioning stuff. That was pretty much it. I could tolerate her parts of the story, but I didn't warm to her, which meant that the core of the book, her relationship with Vivi, held little interest for me. (Though, Sidda became a lot more tolerable after I'd been introduced to her FABULOUS gay best friend, who so irritated me that I almost stopped reading alltogether).

Though the book is well written, there are parts that made me genuinely squirm with embarressment, because they were quite bad. To make a blanket statement, every scene involving Sidda and sex, was terrible. As someone who's overwritten her share of sex scenes, I felt a twinge of empathy, but the descriptions of Sidda's vagina as a flower was cliche, and all the 'love making' left me too creeped out to laugh.

Now, I know these scenes aren't the focus of the book, but Connor and Sidda's relationship is, and the language used in their scenes together was pretty naive, not that I was looking for hardcore language, but something that didn't sound like my nursery teacher wrote it would have been nice.

I know that this book is celebrated and admired, but, for me it has a lot of themes that I've read more about in better books. One day, I might read it again, and try to see past the things that turned me off of it, but...I wouldn't bet on it.

I am however going to read another book by this author, because I think that maybe I just didn't like the plot of this one, and a different story might appeal to me more.

I will say that, this book is far from terrible, in fact it's quite good, but I was expecting more from it, perhaps because of all the cover quotes and hype about it, and the list of prizes it's won. So, I still recommend reading it, and seeing what you think of it yourself. (less)

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May 30, 2012 Ad Astra rated it 4 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Yes, I really liked it. No, I won't be reading it again. I just finished "The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood" and I'm sort of stuck. I have some mixed feelings about it. It's definitely a TOTAL feel good book, with some harder alcoholism and abuse to get through. Ouch. Nothing I'll be reading over again or raving about. But I did actually really like the movie too. However... there was no abuse in the movie, and all the older women who were drinking and alcoholics were just fabulous, ent...more Yes, I really liked it. No, I won't be reading it again. I just finished "The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood" and I'm sort of stuck. I have some mixed feelings about it. It's definitely a TOTAL feel good book, with some harder alcoholism and abuse to get through. Ouch. Nothing I'll be reading over again or raving about. But I did actually really like the movie too. However... there was no abuse in the movie, and all the older women who were drinking and alcoholics were just fabulous, entitled, and without any real actual problems.

The book sort of ended in a flowery mamby pamby kind of way too. It got a little too sweet for me to sit through. The author kept making a point of how one of the characters was gonna let loose, and there were some nice ties between a daughter who wishes (and has made a career of) directing were possible, and the inevitability of life that swings you this way and that.

However, this daughter also cancels her wedding on a guy who does NOTHING wrong EVER in the book except write her these beautiful letters about how sexy and desirable she is while she tromps off to "go find herself" and try to learn "how to love". Which is ridiculous, I've pretty much figured that last part out already myself. You just do it. You love your parents even though your mom is an over emotional, highly sensitive, incredibly manipulative woman with the brains of at least a small world leader. You love your significant other through the thick and thin, you anticipate their weaknesses and you help them find themselves again in their darkest hours. You don't abandon them, lay around saying you're too weak and not worthy of love, then get rescued have makeup sex and everything is okay, NO! Man, if I were friends with that Connor guy, I'd say, "Dude, this shit is not cool. You don't let someone call off an engagement and just run away like that. She's crazy for giving you up." The father figure is almost completely absent too, and receives little blame. Honestly, sounds like the way one of my family members relates to their parents.

But the book is fun. It was a nice read, a nice world to be apart of. A lot of melodramatic women doing ridiculous, too much money emotional things.(less)

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May 20, 2012 Ashley Propes rated it 4 of 5 stars

Sidda is from Louisian. Let me say Louisian is the heart of Catholic people and the home of religious practice. ViVi (Sidda's mother) created the Ya-Ya Sisterhood in the midst 1959. Sidda didnt really have the best childhood...She moved to New York to get away from her mother and her crazy mothers friends and now she is now engaged and happy. Until, She writes a paper in New York Magazine about her past, and she said something about her mom that came out wrong in a negative way. Her mothers frie...more

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May 17, 2012 Megan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: owned

'Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood' is the sequel to Wells' first novel, 'Little Altars Everywhere'. Following the Walker clan from the first book, 'Divine Secrets' is a journey into the relationship between Ya-Ya queen Vivi Abbott Walker and her theatre director daughter, Siddalee. Full of accounts from both of their lives from birth to present day, the novel weaves a story about the way the past can shape us, break us and ultimately heal us.

When Sidda mistakenly opens up to a journalist...more

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May 16, 2012 Anna Ligtenberg rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

ISBN 0060928336 - A #1 New York Times Bestseller, Divine Secrets proves, yet again, that marketing can make a mountain out of any molehill. I really WANTED to like this book even half as much as the marketing told me I should, but I just couldn't work up that much enthusiasm about it.

Sidda is engaged and the wedding date nears when she freaks out, realizing she doesn't "know how to love" and runs off to contemplate her belly button. Blaming her lack of "knowing how to love" on her mother, Vivi,...more ISBN 0060928336 - A #1 New York Times Bestseller, Divine Secrets proves, yet again, that marketing can make a mountain out of any molehill. I really WANTED to like this book even half as much as the marketing told me I should, but I just couldn't work up that much enthusiasm about it.

Sidda is engaged and the wedding date nears when she freaks out, realizing she doesn't "know how to love" and runs off to contemplate her belly button. Blaming her lack of "knowing how to love" on her mother, Vivi, who Sidda recently offended - in the New York Times, no less! - Sidda finds herself adrift without the anchor that Vivi and her mother's friends had been for most of her life. Believing that the answer lies with these women, Sidda is fortunate when her mother relents just enough to send her a scrapbook of Ya-Ya-rablia. Sadly, little scraps don't tell the whole story and Sidda can't piece it together without help.

After the introduction of each scrap, Wells puts it in context for the reader, telling the story of Teensy, Caro, Necie and Vivi - the Ya-Yas. Sidda is NOT aware of these stories, except in rare instances when a character talks TO her or it is her own memory, which makes for some mild confusion. Sidda has to wade through the mess in her head and the scraps in the book in order to feel that she can love - and be loved.

Wells felt the need to subtly point to the fact that Sidda's fiance looks like Vivi's one true love, Jack, several times, but it is never clearly said and therefore seems pointless - most especially since the only person who doesn't seem to remark upon it is Sidda. Oddly, the only thing about the book that sticks in my head after finally finishing it is that every exaggeration was "eighty four thousand" - "saw it eighty four thousand times", "dyeing eighty four thousand eggs", etc.

Fans of chick-lit will like this book. Others, like me, will find themselves referring to it as "the blah-blah sisterhood". The story of the Ya-Yas themselves, without a character like Sidda in the way, might have been more interesting. On the up side for me, I did rather enjoy seeing religion portrayed as one of the worst evils in the story. Not awful, just not worth more than the current used price of one penny (plus shipping).

- AnnaLovesBooks (less)

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Apr 07, 2012 Diane rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: mature-reads

I usually stay clear of book-club books, unless someone whose reading judgement I trust recommends one. (Mistakenly read because it was popular: Life of Pi... wtf? Read by like-minded friend's recommendation: Guernsey Literary and Potato Pie Society... fantastic!)I avoided Ya-Ya because it sounded like a 'made for book club' title. When listening to Malcolm Gladwell's audiobook The Tipping Point, I decided to read Ya-Ya when he used it as an example of word-of-mouth success.

(SPOILER)

I started o...more I usually stay clear of book-club books, unless someone whose reading judgement I trust recommends one. (Mistakenly read because it was popular: Life of Pi... wtf? Read by like-minded friend's recommendation: Guernsey Literary and Potato Pie Society... fantastic!)I avoided Ya-Ya because it sounded like a 'made for book club' title. When listening to Malcolm Gladwell's audiobook The Tipping Point, I decided to read Ya-Ya when he used it as an example of word-of-mouth success.

(SPOILER)

I started off quite delighted. Wells has a lush and detailed writing style that brings the South to life. That tide kept me going for a quarter of the book,until I realised that something was wrong and I slowed down. I realized that I liked none of the characters. The main character flops around in her own life, doing nothing but whining, made incapable of moving forward (despite having become professionally very successful and even famous, and in a loving relationship with a good man) because of her mother's strong character and history with childhood girlfriends.

The mother's history unfolds, and all the events ascribed to her could be more believable in someone with multiple personalities. There is too much. I wore out with the whole Ya-Ya group - all odious, selfish man-haters - and I just can't find the drive to finish the book. There are no strong male characters; husbands, sons and lovers are barely mentioned, and they are all submissive non-entities. They've been emasculated by this group of women. The daughter's worship of her mother, or is it her fear, or is it her guilt...would be understandable if the daughter had been emotionally crippled by it since puberty, not suddenly overwhelmed at..what, 40?

Just as Samurai's Garden is told with the sparse beauty of Japanese art,making characters and life lessons memorable, the Divine Secrets lays on story as heavy and overwhelming as the sticky humidity of a Southern summer.

I'm glad for Wells that her book took off. It isn't a bad book, and I love her descriptions and historical references. It is too sweety, heavy and soggy for me. (less)

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About Rebecca Wells

Rebecca Wells was born and raised in Alexandria, Louisiana. “I grew up,” she says, “in the fertile world of story-telling, filled with flamboyance, flirting, futility, and fear.” Surrounded by Louisiana raconteurs, a large extended family, and Our Lady of Prompt Succor’s Parish, Rebecca’s imagination was stimulated at every turn. Early on, she fell in love with thinking up and acting in plays for...more Rebecca Wells was born and raised in Alexandria, Louisiana. “I grew up,” she says, “in the fertile world of story-telling, filled with flamboyance, flirting, futility, and fear.” Surrounded by Louisiana raconteurs, a large extended family, and Our Lady of Prompt Succor’s Parish, Rebecca’s imagination was stimulated at every turn. Early on, she fell in love with thinking up and acting in plays for her siblings—the beginnings of her career as an actress and writer for the stage. She recalls her early influences as being the land around her, harvest times, craw-fishing in the bayou, practicing piano after school, dancing with her mother and brothers and sister, and the close relationship to her black “mother” who cleaned for the Wells household. She counts black music and culture from Louisiana as something that will stay in her body’s memory forever.

In high school, she read Walt Whitman’s “I Sing the Body Electric,” which opened her up to the idea that everything in life is a poem, and that, as she says, “We are not born separately from one another.” She also read “Howl,” Allen Ginsberg’s indictment of the strangling consumer-driven American culture he saw around him. Acting in school and summer youth theater productions freed Rebecca to step out of the social hierarchies of high school and into the joys of walking inside another character and living in another world.

The day after she graduated from high school, Rebecca left for Yellowstone National Park, where she worked as a waitress. It was an introduction to the natural glories of the park—mountains, waterfalls, hot springs, and geysers—as well as to the art of hitchhiking.

Rebecca graduated from Louisiana State University (LSU) in Baton Rouge, where she studied theater, English, and psychology. She performed in many college plays, but also stepped outside the theater department to become awakened to women’s politics. During this time she worked as a cocktail waitress--once accidentally kicking a man in the shins when he slipped a ten-dollar bill down the front of her dress—and began keeping a journal after reading Anais Nin, which she has done ever since.

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“It’s life. You don’t figure it out. You just climb up on the beast and ride.” — 144 people liked it

“I try to believe," she said, "that God doesn't give you more than one little piece of the story at once. You know, the story of your life. Otherwise your heart would crack wider than you could handle. He only cracks it enough so you can still walk, like someone wearing a cast. But you've still got a crack running up your side, big enough for a sapling to grow out of. Only no one sees it. Nobody sees it. Everybody thinks you're one whole piece, and so they treat you maybe not so gentle as they could see that crack.” — 95 people liked it

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