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Aug 05, 2011

Graceann rated it:

I understand parody to contain humor of some fashion - there is nothing humorous about self-conscious, bad writing. Were we supposed to roll over laughing, holding our sides, at the conceit of calling Rhett Butler "Debt Chauffeur?" I hope not, because it's only an unsatisfying use of a thesaurus. Alice Randall had some interesting premises here: The idea that Ashley may have had a male lover in his past, or that Ellen O'Hara may have had a black person in hers... This could have been f More...

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

Dec 15, 2008

J. rated it:

I found this loathsome. I always thought parody was supposed to be funny, but this parody falls under the less common definition of ridicule. I understand that GWTW is a novel flawed by its depiction of African Americans, but I choose to set aside that part of it as an unfortunate result of the time it was written and the bias of the author. But I can't help it -- I think GWTW is one of the best examples of pure storytelling magic, and what Alice Randall has done here is ugly, malicious and just More...

2 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jul 15, 2008

Missy rated it:

This book should be burned. I read reviews about how terrible it was but fell for it anyways because it is tied (unauthorized) to Gone with the Wind. It is clear that the author had issues. First, because she was not authorized by the Margaret Mitchell estate to write the book, most characters are referred to by initials only or nicknames: "R" (Rhett), "Other" (Scarlett). Second, she seems hung up on wanting all of the characters to have "black blood" in them, inclu More...

2 comments like (4 people liked it)

Sep 15, 2010

Judy rated it:

I have not yet ever read Gone With the Wind, though I have seen the movie countless times. I have read Scarlett, Alexandra Ripley's supposed sequel and vaguely remember it. It's been seventeen years since I read it. The Wind Done Gone is a brilliant novel of imagination and truth concerning Cynara, daughter of Mammy and Mr O'Hara (the owner of Tara). Cynara was born in the same year as Scarlett. Through her diary we learn about her life, her relationship to Scarlett and Mammy and others from G More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Nov 15, 2009

Stephanie rated it:

I received a copy of Gone With the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell, for my fourteenth birthday. On the dust jacket of my copy are printed the following review excerpts: “Nobody who finds pleasure in the art of fiction can afford to neglect...Gone With the Wind...a book of uncommon quality, a superb piece of storytelling...” (The New York Times; “...the best novel that has ever come out of the South. In fact, I believe it is unsurpassed in the whole of American writing” (Washington Post); “For sheer More...

1 comment like (10 people liked it)

Jun 15, 2009

Christy rated it:

Shocking and unapologetic, The Wind Done Gone is one author's imaginings of what really went on behind the scenes and in the slave quarters of that American South epic tragedy, Gone With the Wind through the eyes of Scarlett's half-sister, Cynara, who is a slave on Tara and who also happens to become Rhett Butler's long-time mistress. Reading it was not an enjoyable experience, specifically because it springboards from the GWTW story, skewing plot and characters in unpleasant directions that rin More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Apr 02, 2009

Maryse rated it:

Despite the number of bad reviews I’ve read regarding The Wind Done Gone, my curiosity got the better of me and I read the book. The first few pages were okay. By the time I got to the middle part, however, I was bored. The story itself is too melodramatic, too romantic for my taste, and only vaguely relates to Gone With The Wind . The author not only changes the characters names (supposedly to get past the copyright) but changes the characters as well that I can’t reconcile her weak “R” to das More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 12, 2010

Tiffany rated it:

The best testament of the worthiness of this book to be read is the extent to which the adoring fans of Gone With the Wind hate it. Margaret Mitchell romanticized slavery, rendered invisible the sexual and psychological violence of the institution, and portrayed slaves as thoughtless creatures wholly dependent upon white people for their survival. Don't get me wrong: I enjoyed the novel anyway. But with The Wind Done Gone, Alice Randall lays bare the aspects of slavery that Mitchell ignored by More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Dec 25, 2007

Ginny rated it:

This is Gone With the Wind from the point of view of the slaves. I love the idea and this could have been great. Instead it had a strange tone. I also found it annoying that the main character (Scarlett's half-sister by her father and Mammy) always referred to the original GWTW characters by her own names - seemed like a cheesy way to get around copyright infringement.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 17, 2011

Cindy rated it:

The Wind Done Gone, by Alice Randall, is a partial retelling of Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. In Randall s version, the story is told from the viewpoint of Cynara who is Scarlett s biracial half-sister. The story is sad and conflicted. Cynara both loves and hates the southern plantation and the people who live there. Her attitude of Tara (which she refers to as Tata) and everyone there is very cynical. However, that attitude is understandable based on the circumstances in whic More...

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Nov 25, 2009

Miss_otis rated it:

I've always loved Gone With the Wind, I love alternate perspectives on a well-known story, and I loved the hell out of this. I adored seeing things from a slave's perspective, and I really liked having the blatant romaticizing of the era injected with a bit more reality, i.e.,white men having sex with slaves, selling off the resulting offspring, and generally acting as if the slaves weren't really people. Because yes. Yes, it happened, and if you think it didn't, you're dreaming.

Tru More...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Dec 07, 2009

Gingerduchess added it

this is, without a doubt, the most God-awful piece of crap I've ever had the misfortune to read. It is merely a piece of very poorly written fan-fiction, except Alice Randall clearly has a grudge against Margaret Mitchell. Scarlett O'Hara may have been an unlikable character, but at least every character in GWTW was fully fleshed out and developed. While it is important to note that master/slave relations did commonly exsist (and not just in the South) not every Southerner was a gay, slave-own More...

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Sep 14, 2008

Brandi rated it:

Good premise, poorly executed. The writing was poor quality, even taking into account the intentional errors due to the dialects and such. The story is boring, and it seems like the author wrote it only to make a point about race relations rather than adding to the GWTW legacy, using that to sell a book that would've been rejected from the beginning otherwise.

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

May 01, 2009

Callie rated it:

Skimming it quickly, not really liking it so much at the moment.

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I'm not sure if I should really give this book a review because I really just skimmed it. Here is the story of Mammy's daughter and her version of Gone with the wind. Usually when I hear the word parody, I think of something funny, but this is not that. I didn't really enjoy the book but I can't really pinpoint why. I didn't have m More...

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Aug 21, 2009

Tabitha rated it:

I'm moving this book off of my "currently reading" shelf because, after the first several chapters I realized I will not finish this book. The fragmented and schizophrenic writing made the storyline virtually non-existent. The characters of this book do not reflect those in Gone With The Wind in any shape or form, and were it not for the book's billing as an "unauthorized" account of the GWTW world and its inevitable controversy, I would never had know of The Wind Done Gone More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 13, 2008

Daniel rated it:

This book is not terrible, but it's pretty bad. While it raises some interesting questions, the plot twists and even some of the underlying assumptions are unrealistic. This was like fan fiction-- only the fan didn't actually like the original author. What's that? Fixation fiction?

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Mar 22, 2010

Shyla rated it:

This is a look at Gone with the Wind as told from Scareltt's half sister, the daughter of Mammy and Gerald O'hara. Yes, it's quite a leap. I have a mixed review.

I loved the haunting beautiful way it was written, told from a diary and in such beauiful truly deep language. I loved looking at my favoite story from a different perspective, especially a slaves view. I loved learning more about some of the character's from GWTW, event though they were not portrayed in the way I have alway More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 12, 2010

Linda rated it:

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May 27, 2011

Renee rated it:

Certainly NOT a parody! Mildly interesting, very sad, and full of imagination, as well as inconsistencies. No former slave could manage to sound so educated, then so ignorant, all in one breath. She had to be one or the other. The ignorant times were not even ones which one could imagine happening to an educated person; they were such complete reversals that they jangled. If you loved GWTW, you can read this, enjoy the alternative POV, and not have GWTW ruined for you. As far as being a st More...

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Jan 14, 2012

Mary rated it:

This novel tells the story of Gone with the Wind from the point of view of Scarlett’s half sister, daughter of Mr. O’Hara and Mammy. Throughout the whole novel, the protagonist calls Scarlett only “Other,” which will make anyone who’s ever read postcolonial criticism chuckle, but which I think was also motivated by lawsuits or fear of lawsuits from the Mitchell estate. The kicker is that she steals Rhett from Scarlett! I loved the way this book centered attention on the slaves and their story, u More...

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Jul 16, 2011

Jen rated it:

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Mar 23, 2009

Brent added it

I've never read Gone With The Wind. I've never seen the movie. I don't know anything about it except that it's set in Atlanta and someone frankly doesn't give a damn.

I was reading The Wind Done Gone and enjoying it at the start, but just had to give it up about halfway through when it gets to the part about how people love their white babies more than their brown babies. It's so depressing. Even though I didn't finish reading this book, I think the whole reason it was writt More...

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Oct 07, 2010

Bridgit rated it:

Really bad, schizophrenic fan-fiction. Honestly, I have no idea what was happening when. It jumped around so much it was ridiculous. Obviously a white person reading Gone with the Wind will get a different feeling out of than a black person. I think a retelling of GwtW from the point of view of Mammy or one of the other slaves would have been a fascinating read. This just doesnt cut it, however. This isnt a retelling, its fan fic. The story just doesnt fit in with the 'reality' in the original s More...

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Oct 14, 2009

Jan rated it:

This book takes the story of Gone With the Wind and gives it a rapid neck twist, killing it forever. Instead, the story that will remain with you is THIS story, the story of Mammy's daughter Cynara, who is Rhett Butler's lover. Randall renames the main characters of GWTW from the perspective of her main character, with Scarlett as the Other, the other child who has sucked all of Mammy's love and attention away from Cynara. This is a spirited and vivid re-imagining of Gone With the Wind, much More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Dec 29, 2011

Deborah rated it:

I loved the idea of it: the title is brilliant. Unfortunately, the story itself is far from brilliant ~ it is disappointing. It is plodding and poorly written. Brilliant parodies abound. Fieldings did wonders with Shamela and Joseph Andrews. Randalls did nothing worth reading (and I had so looked forward to it). There's plenty to work with in Gone With the Wind ~ a talented parodist could have produced a masterpiece. Instead, Randalls wasted a perfectly good title that can't really be re-used, c More...

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Jan 24, 2012

Crystal rated it:

I struggled through every page. And it's a shame, because I was really excited about the idea and the possibilities. The result is almost ridiculous. It's very confusing, not only by it's bizarre names (Other, R,) that are so generic and leave absolutely no chance for the reader to cement to a character, it heavily relies on the work already done with the Gone with the Wind novel and instead of telling the same story from a different perspective with its own great characterization, setting, plot More...

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Sep 07, 2010

Sara added it

I like reading spoofs with their antecedents (e.g. Eat, Pray, Love and Drink, Play, F@#k), so as soon as Gone With the Wind went, The Wind Done Gone arrived.

I loved Gone With the Wind for its clarity, epic sweep and romantic character development, even if doing so made me feel complicit in its racist history. So I was attracted to the premise of The Wind Done Gone, a retelling of Margaret Mitchell's novel from the perspective of Scarlett's mulatto half-sister. But instead of finding More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 08, 2009

Pumpkinbear rated it:

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0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 13, 2008

Liz rated it:

Having begun this as I was reading the last few chapters of Gone With the Wind, I still had Maragret Mitchell's excellent prose rattling in my head as I began this 21st century novel.

This was written in diary form from the viewpoint of Cynara, Scarlett's half-sister via Mr. O'Hara and Mammy. She begins on her 28th birthday and is considering going to Tara, which she calls Tata because her mother is dying.

The whole style is not keeping with the GWtW. Cynara writes in dream More...

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Jan 21, 2008

Roopsi rated it:

I had extremely low expectations for this revisting of Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind, having found both Scarlett and Rhett Butler's People less than pleasing. Alice Randall's novel, however, is both beautiful and perplexing. Although the cover bears the disclaimer "The Unauthorized Parody," there is nothing parodic about this book. (I think it fits a legal definition for "parody," though not a literary one.)

The Wind Done Gone offers a version of Gone With More...

1 comment like (5 people liked it)