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31st out of 118 books
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90 voters
Outer Banks
They came together as sorority sisters on a Southern campus is the '60s: Elegant Kate, walking a tightrope over an abyss of lies ... Sensitive, sensible, self-contained Cecie ... Ginger, the sexy, vibrant heiress, richer than sin ... and poor, hopeless, brilliant Fig.
Four young women bound by rare, blinding, early friendship -- they spend two idyllic spring breaks at Nag's...more
Four young women bound by rare, blinding, early friendship -- they spend two idyllic spring breaks at Nag's...more
Paperback, 416 pages
Published
February 1st 2004
by Avon - HarperCollins
(first published June 1st 1991)
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I wanted to like this book better. Miss/Mrs. Siddons has lovely sentences, and her characters are unique and human, but the book was bogged down by a decidedly gossipy banality, a lack of the poetry of the mundane that made it as much soap opera as a portriat of the human condition; the latter her failed goal. The drama and events are too contrived to be believable.
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
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I think this is the second Anne Rivers Siddons book I ever bought and read (on the strength of how much I enjoyed "Hill Towns"). Many years later I am belatedly revising it and enjoying it afresh.
Kate is a married woman who has battled deadly ovarian cancer for nearly five years, and now, just shy of getting the 'all clear' she believes it is coming back. Before she surrenders to another round of debilitating chemotherapy, she wants to enjoy one last magical summer with the three friends from he...more
Kate is a married woman who has battled deadly ovarian cancer for nearly five years, and now, just shy of getting the 'all clear' she believes it is coming back. Before she surrenders to another round of debilitating chemotherapy, she wants to enjoy one last magical summer with the three friends from he...more
Anne Rivers Siddons, the author of Outer Banks is comfortable explaining the southern soul, but she also understands the depth of friendships that develop during a young woman's formative years. Many of us can remember the deep friendships we formed when away at college for the first time. We often look at these friendships with idealism and nostalgia.
Kate who is fighting a battle with cancer is asked to attend a reunion with her three closest college friends, Cecie, Ginger and Fig. Kate is unsu...more
Kate who is fighting a battle with cancer is asked to attend a reunion with her three closest college friends, Cecie, Ginger and Fig. Kate is unsu...more
Apr 07, 2012
Mary
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Anyone who likes contemporary fiction
Recommended to Mary by:
Library Book Sale
Elegant Kate, walking a tightrope over an abyss of lies; Cecie, self-contained, sensitive and sensible; Ginger, the sexy, vibrant, richer-than-sin heiress and poor, hopeless, brilliant Georgina, nicknamed Fig - came together as sorority sisters on a Southern campus in the 1960s. Four women bound by rare, blinding and early friendship. They spend two idyllic spring breaks at Nag's Head, North Carolina, the isolated strip of barrier islands where grand old weather beaten houses perch defiantly on...more
I have wanted to read this book since college, but I just never got around to it, and I think I also was a bit embarrassed to read a book by Anne Rivers Siddons. When I saw it in the bargain section at the Tattered Cover, I decided to give it a chance. I'm so glad that I did, because I'm truly surprised by how much I liked this book, and for all the reasons that it appealed to me when I first read the reviews back in my Davis days. It is all about female friendship and the complex, unpredictable...more
An earlier Siddons novel, with a distinctly Southern feel. Told from the perspective of Kate Lee Abrams as she reluctantly prepares for a reunion with three of her college sorority sisters, and alternating from the present to 1960s Virginia. Kate Lee did not grow up a child of privilege, but her father's obsessive desire for status led Kate to Randolph Macon College with all the outward appearances of a well-heeled Southern belle. She bonds with three very different young women in her sorority -...more
I loved this book better than Peachtree Road up to 98%. The story theme was about false appearances, people acting on the surface in civilized and splendid fakery, like the elegant dancing of 18th century Baroque minuets. The setting is four middle-aged sorority girls and a reunion at a grand house on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. We have Kate Stuart Lee, neither a Lee of Virginia nor offspring of General Stuart. Her boyfriend Paul Sibley, a prostitute's son whose mother took the last name...more
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Outer Banks is one of my favorite Anne Rivers Siddons books. She is a middle-aged woman looking back to her college years in a sort of "how did I get here" experience. I always enjoy getting to know her characters and locations and have taken several East coast vacations largely due to the interest in the area that her books left with me. I read this book again when years later I finally went to the Outer Banks on vacation and found a tattered copy where we stayed. Having read everything ARS has...more
This was the August 2005 Branigan BookClub selection.
Kate, Cecie, Fig and Ginger were college roommates. As grown women, one summer, they meet at Ginger's beach house on North Carolina's Outer banks for an informal reunion. After some bittersweet reminiscing they discover unsettling things about their friendship. And when Paul, the one true love of Kate's life, and whom Ginger married, shows up, they are forced to confront the truths about their past.
Siddons has an unerring eye for the emotions...more
Kate, Cecie, Fig and Ginger were college roommates. As grown women, one summer, they meet at Ginger's beach house on North Carolina's Outer banks for an informal reunion. After some bittersweet reminiscing they discover unsettling things about their friendship. And when Paul, the one true love of Kate's life, and whom Ginger married, shows up, they are forced to confront the truths about their past.
Siddons has an unerring eye for the emotions...more
This book is awful. I picked it up because I love the Outer Banks and I thought it would be a nice way to reminisce about family vacations. It was also a book about sorority women, of which I am one. I thought it might be nice to view sorority life from a middle-aged perspective. No. There is absolutely zero plot and the syntax is jumpy, with very little contextual interplay. Flashbacks in literature should be seamless; these are jerky and unwarranted. The drama and events are unrealistic and un...more
Having read several of Anee Rivers Siddons books, I will say that this is my favorite so far; starts off a little slowly but once the main character enters college and makes some friends the story really becomes moving. Every woman can relate to the love-hate relationships that these friends have with each other. Also, a trip back to the sixties is always worth a visit (especially to the South if you weren't raised there). The story also jumps ahead from time-to-time to the main character's life...more
This book was not as I expected it to be. A friend let me borrow it, and if she hadn't, then I probably wouldn't have finished the book. The story starts out slow, and goes back and forth between the past and the present, which I really hate, especially when the book is first starting and you don't know what's going on yet. However, I kept plugging away at it and then I was hooked, about a third of the way in.
The main character is Kate (written from her viewpoint) who is raised to be an actress...more
The main character is Kate (written from her viewpoint) who is raised to be an actress...more
I couldn't put it down and practically read it in a day so that's why I gave it 4 stars, but the ending disappointed me. It was like the author didn't know how to end it so she just sorta came up with some nonsense. Peachtree Road and Colony are still way better, and I was hoping this would be in the same category, and it so was... until the end! I'm going to keep reading you ARS, but please stop disappointing me! Maybe it's just hard to recapture the excellence of Peachtree Road and Colony and...more
This was a book with a compelling story, but the book was very hard for me to read. I put this book down with every intent not to pick it back up, but ended up finishing it. The way that the author writes was hard for me to get into and continue reading, but the plot was very well put together. I liked the book well enough, but will not read another book by the same author, because of the problems I already noted. The stars are for the plot, not the writing.
I love this book. I've read many others by this author and they have been ok, although her spoiled characters tend to grate on my nerves. But this book is different. Something about this story gets under my skin and the main character, Kate, says things that resonate completely with me. I know that not everyone that reads more literary fiction would enjoy it but I've read it many times and it never disappoints.
Another thematic read while vacationing in OBX, courtesy of our kind condo owner. I enjoyed the sentences, I found the content pretty interesting (I knew little of southern sorority life and the east coast concept of "summering"), thought the characters were rather compelling..but where the story finished seemed sufficiently absurd to cloud over the rest of what I had casually enjoyed. Meh.
Having just returned from the outer banks, I wanted to re-read this. I found I didn't enjoy it as much the second time around. I would probably have given it a 4 star after reading it 15 years ago... It only felt like a 3 star this time. It's a fun "beach" book though and I'm fascinated by the outer banks and stories grounded in the south.
More like 2.5 stars. There was a lot to appreciate this book, which was very well-written... but it never captured me. It took me so much longer than usual to read it because, every time I could pick up a book, I'd come up with other things to do because I didn't really WANT to read it. Not sure why, but...
I thougth this book would be a perfect beach read for my summer vacation in the Outer Banks. I kept waiting for it to get better and it never did. Perhaps I would have enjoyed it more if I'd been in a sorority in college...
I'm also kind of suprised that this was an option for one of the "Modern Fiction" choices during my Junior year of high school. I'm glad I chose to read Pat Conroy that year instead.
I'm also kind of suprised that this was an option for one of the "Modern Fiction" choices during my Junior year of high school. I'm glad I chose to read Pat Conroy that year instead.
While I appreciated Siddons' vocabulary usage, I spent most of this book waiting for . . . something, anything. Maybe I'm just not a good chick lit reader, but this was mostly a waste of my time. I should know better by now, but for $2.00 I threw aside my instincts and gave it a shot. Silly, silly me.
For the first half to 2/3 of the book I was thoroughly engrossed in it. Siddons is one of my favorite writers; I love her vivid descriptions and her word choices. I usually learn a few new words from her. But somewhere between pgs 400-500, when the group of college pals reunited after decades of no communication, I started to dislike intensely the main character, Kay Lee. Prior to that she was sympathetic (she had, after all, lost her only child in an accident and survived cancer), and had been...more
Kate Abrams, an interior designer, is invited to a reunion with her three college roommates at a beach cottage at Nags Head,NC. I loved the story of the four sorority sisters thirty years earlier, but the last part of the book, the reunion, was way too far-fetched and over the top.
This reminded of South of Broad. It has the same unbelievable characters and plot. It has a big storm at the end too. The end was phoney and unbelievable. It is only redeemed by some beautifully written passages. The woman can write but she needs to get to some kind of reality.
A 30 year plus story of sorority sisters in the south. A good summer beach read with lots of twists and turns, some expected and some not. You go through periods of loving and disliking the characters through their decisions and as they grow up. Great southern read.
I read this on a plane and in a car doing lots of tedious driving, and it was good for that purpose. Sorority sisters have a reunion at a beach house on the Outer Banks, and the people involved have changed much over the years...or have they?
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
I agree with the Chicago Tribune's assessment:
"One doesn't read Anne Rivers Siddons' books; one dwells in them."
She takes us 30 + years through the lives of 4 college sorority sisters...this isn't "chick lit" ... this is life!
I don't want to spoil the story for those of you who haven't read it.
I really enjoyed dwelling in this novel.
"One doesn't read Anne Rivers Siddons' books; one dwells in them."
She takes us 30 + years through the lives of 4 college sorority sisters...this isn't "chick lit" ... this is life!
I don't want to spoil the story for those of you who haven't read it.
I really enjoyed dwelling in this novel.
This story took me awhile to get into. It flashes back and forth from 4 friends college days to their present day whereabouts. They have not been in contact with each other for over 20 years, and plan a reunion on the Outer Banks where they used to stay years earlier. the story has some great plot twists at the very end. I really enjoyed this story once I got involved with the main character and found out why they were not speaking for over 20 years.
This book had a lot of potential to be a compelling story of loss and growth (and more), but it just never really got there. It was really two stories in one, but I thought the author didn't develop either fully. One story is of the main character's pain - pain from family, from being hurt by others, from loss of loved ones. The other story is sort of a psychological thriller that doesn't come to light until the very end of the book. A strange combination that didn't work for me. I don't recomme...more
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| Calumet City Publ...: January 2013 Book Club Selection | 1 | 1 | Jan 30, 2013 09:04am | |
| Ending: Love it or Hate it? | 1 | 4 | Nov 16, 2012 09:38am |
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“Everything about it and the fierce old coast around it, had the ring and taste and feel of utter rightness to me. Its peace and loneliness crept into my veins and ran there, its wildness called out to the deep buried wildness in my heart.”
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Nov 13, 2012 01:12pm