Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Are You Sitting Down?

3.47 of 5 stars 3.47 · rating details · 101 ratings · 30 reviews

A rape victim raising a biracial baby. A drug addict haunted by a dead girlfriend. A homosexual mourning a dead lover. A teacher having an affair with his student. And a businesswoman sexually harassed by her boss. What do they all have in common? They all sit at Lorraine White's holiday dinner table; they are also her children.

But Lorraine's children are not the only ones...more

Paperback, 272 pages

Published November 10th 2010 by Shanlian Wordlit Press (first published October 3rd 2010)

more details... edit details

Get a copy:

More…

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Lists with This Book

Best Books of 2010

370th out of 1,003 books — 2,195 voters

Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

Great Books of Southern Fiction

57th out of 93 books — 267 voters

More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 370)

filter | sort: default (?) | rating details

Aug 23, 2012 Booklover, Indianapolis rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: bookclub, own-in-e-format, read-in-2012, 1-and-2-star-books

(August) Very blah. Really, this book was a whole lot of nothing. I feel like the author wanted to write a 'deep' book filled w/skeletons and such, and she just failed in that regard. Each character was supposed to be interesting - but they weren't. They were boring and unlikable. The parts of the book told by the dead guy - boring and pointless. The mother's new boyfriend - when Travis say's "I'm gay" he keeps saying "what?" and "I don't understand" - really how hard is that to compute? And Cla...more

like 1 like · see review

Jan 19, 2011 Mark rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shannon Yarbrough’s intriguing third novel, Are You Sitting Down, explores the dysfunctions of the White family and their neighbors in the charmingly named town of Ruby Dregs, Tennessee, a Memphis exurb. Delving into the themes of corruption, carnal desire and forgiveness that Yarbrough also staked out in his first two novels, Are You Sitting Down portrays small town life as claustrophobic, malicious and filled with secrets.

The occasion is Christmas, and the novel’s anchor, Travis White, is retu...more Shannon Yarbrough’s intriguing third novel, Are You Sitting Down, explores the dysfunctions of the White family and their neighbors in the charmingly named town of Ruby Dregs, Tennessee, a Memphis exurb. Delving into the themes of corruption, carnal desire and forgiveness that Yarbrough also staked out in his first two novels, Are You Sitting Down portrays small town life as claustrophobic, malicious and filled with secrets.

The occasion is Christmas, and the novel’s anchor, Travis White, is returning to Ruby Dregs for his family’s annual gathering. The middle child of five White siblings, Travis escaped the confining prejudices of Ruby Dregs for the more cosmopolitan culture of Memphis, but he cannot escape the memory of his recently deceased partner Justin, nor can he entirely leave his family and their problems behind him. And do they ever have problems!

The litany of crimes, aberrant behaviors and immoral acts committed by or against the Whites and their neighbors would put Caligula to shame, including but not limited to rape, drug addiction, a fatal drug overdose, incest, sexual harassment, suicide, adultery, murder and the relatively innocent lying, which is so common in Ruby Dregs as barely to rate mentioning. In addition, the characters struggle against the perceptions of their more backward neighbors and family members that interracial relationships and homosexuality are evil, giving nearly every character in the story enough problems to warrant a separate novel each.

The story features multiple first person narrators, who take turns offering their own back-stories and giving conflicting versions of present-time events. All of the major characters (including two who have died) get chances to share their perceptions, and their stories, told confidentially to the reader, provide a panoramic view of the family and town; but none of the narrators offers the reader a moral lens through which to view the characters’ actions.

Whether they perpetrate or suffer the crimes and misdemeanors they relate, the characters rarely make any judgments about what they do except to justify their own crimes, and the novel’s attitude toward the town’s secrets is neutral. All secrets—marital dysfunction, homicide, closeted homosexuality—carry the same moral weight in Are You Sitting Down, and the novel treats its grotesque and realistic elements in exactly the same manner, so that the gothic aspects of the story offer neither commentary nor framework for understanding the characters’ more mundane challenges.

For example, the misadventures of Sebastian, whose drug addiction contributes to the fatal overdose of his girlfriend, are presented with the same tone and withheld moral judgment as the actions of Mr. Black, a sociopath; Martin, who exchanges sex for grades with one of his high school biology students; and Travis, whose only “crime” is being gay. Surely Sebastian and Travis deserve our sympathy, at least, and Mr. Black our condemnation, but the novel presents all secrets as equal. The amoral atmosphere of Ruby Dregs thus becomes a kind of Hobbesian diorama, in which acts are only right or wrong, worthy of sympathy or condemnation, according to the perceptions of the people who discover them.

Are You Sitting Down does offer moments of redemption, most notably in the story of the marital difficulties of Mark and Ellen, and it often achieves an elegiac serenity when describing the physical environs of Ruby Dregs, a town as peaceful and quiet as a snow globe. Yarbrough’s gift for engaging scenes and snappy dialogue is on display throughout, though there are also long stretches of narrative exposition in which action is related second- or third-hand. The novel is a sprawling experiment in point of view and jigsawing perceptions, which does not focus as clearly as Yarbrough’s earlier, more spry Memphis novel The Other Side of What, which covers some of the same territory.

I look forward to seeing the next novel from Yarbrough’s inventive mind.
(less)

like 1 like · see review

Jul 06, 2012 Kate Aaron rated it 5 of 5 stars

Wow. This book is incredible, tender and moving and always wonderfully understated. A close study of the inner lives and thoughts of the members of one family as they gather for Christmas, we see their triumphs and their disasters through their own eyes as they remember the events of their pasts and build their hopes for the future. It has a somber, melancholy tone, and there's more tragedy than comedy, which in places skims close to hyperbolic, but each character is so beautifully drawn, so lo...more

like 1 like · see review

Aug 13, 2012 Steven Knapp rated it 5 of 5 stars

The short novel Are You Sitting Down begins tragically with the death of Frank White, the beloved husband of Lorraine White and father of five adult children. But even as Frank is dying, the author cleverly allows him to inform the reader about the final minutes of his life in the first person. Frank’s personal account of his own death introduces the format that allows the remaining characters in the novel to also tell their life stories in the first person.

Lorraine White must now face her first...more The short novel Are You Sitting Down begins tragically with the death of Frank White, the beloved husband of Lorraine White and father of five adult children. But even as Frank is dying, the author cleverly allows him to inform the reader about the final minutes of his life in the first person. Frank’s personal account of his own death introduces the format that allows the remaining characters in the novel to also tell their life stories in the first person.

Lorraine White must now face her first Christmas in a very long time not only without her loving husband but also with the knowledge of her own secret that she has chosen to keep from the rest of her family. As each of her five children and their families prepare to arrive at Lorraine’s home for this very special Christmas Eve, we begin to learn that none of their lives are without complication.

From this point Are You Sitting Down transforms itself into two different novels. In the first version, the casual reader can be easily entertained as each family member introduces the details of their own life story. Not unlike almost anyone else, many of those stories relay incidents of unforeseen tragedy interlaced with descriptions of the occasional triumph. From this more casual perspective the book becomes a simple mystery novel with each character providing the clues that allow the reader to learn far more about the extended White family than any individual family member has ever been allowed to know. But for the more careful reader, the same pages also reveal a much more complex narrative that runs parallel to the simple mystery. In this version, the author provides an insightful look into the lives of the many characters that have had their personalities uniquely molded by the intimacy of growing up in a small town that has a proximity to nature than most life-long city dwellers could never fully appreciate.

The author’s narrative which describes the personal lives of the book’s main characters, regardless of their age or gender, demonstrates an insight into human behavior that goes well beyond what most of our fellow humans are ever able to acquire. Some novels are of course little more than an autobiography in which the author attempts to disguise his own life story by substituting different names for his main characters, staging the story in places other than those where the author may have once lived, and creating some events that may have not yet been a part of the author’s real life. It seems plausible that all three techniques might apply to this effort. With this in mind, it may be possible for the discerning reader to identify which character in the book most likely represents the author. The evidence for such a conclusion can be found within the detailed descriptions of the joy that others have brought to this character’s life as well as those narratives which express the pain this character was occasionally forced to endure. The descriptions of each emotion are so vivid that it would be difficult to believe such perceptions could be offered by someone who has not walked down a similar path in real life.

A word of caution, although this work can be read just a few chapters at a time and even over a period of several days, once opened this is the kind of book that is hard to put down. Should you chose to read it over a longer period of time, I would suggest you at least plan your schedule far enough in advance to allow sufficient time to read the last three chapters all in one sitting. You may want to also budget for a few minutes of quiet time after you have finished the last few pages just in case you feel a need to reflect on how the final narratives may have touched your own life. Should you reach the end of the book and discover that you did not need this brief time for personal reflection and recovery or that the author should have done a better job trying to tie up some lose ends, then I would suggest that you may have missed the larger point of the book. Perhaps this may even be why the author asks the question “are you sitting down” in the first place. It is after all a book which offers insight into the meaning of life, even if it may not have been the author’s original intent to do so.

Steven Knapp
Belleville, IL
(less)

like 1 like · see review

Oct 08, 2011 Gabriella rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: queer-lit

I am so glad that I read this novel. First off, my impression was that it would be a realistic Midwestern family drama. As I got further immersed in the book, I began to see that it is in fact a deeply Southern tale, concerned with secrets, sex and death. The book opens with a death, in fact; the father, Frank White, has a stroke while his wife Lorraine weeps at his side. Yarbrough does death scenes in an unusual and interesting way. They are strangely intimate, as we see the thoughts of the dyi...more I am so glad that I read this novel. First off, my impression was that it would be a realistic Midwestern family drama. As I got further immersed in the book, I began to see that it is in fact a deeply Southern tale, concerned with secrets, sex and death. The book opens with a death, in fact; the father, Frank White, has a stroke while his wife Lorraine weeps at his side. Yarbrough does death scenes in an unusual and interesting way. They are strangely intimate, as we see the thoughts of the dying person as they fade out of the world. Their thoughts are for their loved one, but the implication is that they are being freed from something messy and sad. In fact, the family that Frank is leaving behind is not really a happy one. Each adult child has secrets which they haven't shared with the others; each carries burdens and regrets and shame. The anchor of the book is the third child Travis, a gay man who has lost his lover Justin to cancer. Each person reflects on their life in short chapters, making this a many-angled novel of unusual depth.

Travis is an outsider to the family, living in Memphis while the others have stayed in the small town aptly named Ruby Dregs. (The foul rag and bone shop of the heart, anyone?) While he adores his mother, he realizes at the end of the book that he hasn't been as close to her as he thought. The driving plot of the book is the leadup to the family Christmas, where all the Whites will be together. This Christmas, it's well-behaved Travis's turn to make a scene--a shocking outburst that had me laughing out loud, but also keenly aware, as a gay person, how painful it is to always be the person pushed aside and not central in a family. Another highlight of the book is Travis's first visit to the Ruby Dregs cemetery to see Justin's headstone, which he has picked out. In a powerful scene, an old black woman selling flowers seems to be channeling Justin's spirit as she brings Travis messages from beyond the grave. "Are You Sitting Down?" deals with themes of forgiveness, reconciliation, and a journey to wholeness, but Yarbrough's writing makes clear that death is always just around the corner and that despite the hope of family togetherness, each of us is stumbling through life alone dealing with our past and our secrets.

There's another element to the story. Justin's parents, the Blacks, are painted as truly toxic. In fact, as we see more of Justin's father, who initially seems like a mild-mannered, obese old man, we get peeks into the mind of a sociopath. To deal with love, death AND evil... this novel takes on a lot, posing destabilizing questions about reality at every turn.

Here is a quote that seems to sum up the spirit of the novel. It comes as the Whites' youngest daughter, Clare, is thinking about what she found when she looked through her father's desk after he died. "Sometimes we yearn for the truth that we think is hidden from us. It's only when we find the truth we've been looking for that we often wish we didn't know after all, and then we see why it was kept from us in the first place."
(less)

like 1 like · see review

Jul 21, 2011 Cheryl Gardner rated it 4 of 5 stars

Let me just preface this review with a full disclosure. I know Shannon Yarbrough. We travel the same Indie review circles, and I reviewed an earlier book of his titled Stealing Wishes, which I enjoyed a great deal. As a matter of fact, the author thanks me in the back of this book for simply "getting" his writing. When he queried the Podpeople for this book, I happily snapped it up. I wasn't mistaken in doing so, because true to form, Mr. Yarbrough always gives the reader compelling characters a...more Let me just preface this review with a full disclosure. I know Shannon Yarbrough. We travel the same Indie review circles, and I reviewed an earlier book of his titled Stealing Wishes, which I enjoyed a great deal. As a matter of fact, the author thanks me in the back of this book for simply "getting" his writing. When he queried the Podpeople for this book, I happily snapped it up. I wasn't mistaken in doing so, because true to form, Mr. Yarbrough always gives the reader compelling characters and thought provoking storylines, albeit in this story, some of those storylines are quite disturbing. I reviewed this from an uncorrected proof copy, so there were quite a few formatting and grammatical issues to wade through, but I am sure these were rectified in the final edit.

As in all Mr. Yarbrough's work, the family members in this story are revealed to us with an honest objectivity some might find troubling. This book really begins at the end, if you will. All secrets are revealed with stark acceptance. All the characters have had time to dwell on their sins, and all have reconciled their various justifications. There are no labored confessions here to tug on our heartstrings. Everyone at this point has lived through their struggles and has accepted who they are, what they've done, and that the scars are permanent. The author makes no judgments here. Every crime is weighed equally, and by crime, I mean the crime each character has tried, convicted, and punished themselves for.

The story is told in alternating first-person points of view, each chapter devoted to one character, and aside from everyone being bludgeoned to death by Southern small town life, each character is connected to everyone else in the story not simply by familiar family bonds, but by the secrets they keep. Bigotry, infidelity, rape, murder, terminal illness, addiction, sexual orientation, sexual obsession, love, hatred, loss, and death, these are the ties that bind in this story.

As for the structure, it is much like any ordinary family holiday dinner: chaotic, which I felt served the story well. Each character is present "in the moment" and yet not because the past weighs heavily on each and every one of them. It felt to me almost like an American haunting of a sort, as if each character were a ghost cursed to reflect on what they had become instead of what they could be. Always drawn back into the past to dwell on the misery leveled upon them over the course of their lives. For some, that misery came with a poorly made choice, and for others, like Travis, the misery is downright unjust.

They say in a small town everyone knows everything about everyone else, and this story serves to debunk that myth. Here everyone knows what they think they know, and in reality, they only know what's relevant to their own personal struggle, and their attitudes towards the secrets that they think they know are really just reflections of their own inner turmoil. No one really knows anything deeper about the other characters aside from the surface wounds, which is sadly true to life. We talk to the people in our lives, but we rarely really listen. We claim to "share" our most intimate feelings with a certain few, but we rarely tell anyone the unadulterated truth about anything. That realism and truth about the collective consciousness is driven home quite powerfully in this story.

In this book, Christmas is a time for giving and healing, and what the reader gets to unwrap are the intimate confessions of a family who has never chosen to be honest with itself. The reader must decide where sympathy should be given and judgment passed. All the various perceptions in the story lack any real peripheral vision, allowing the reader to supply that on their own, which I loved. The reader is offered the rare opportunity here to be the psychoanalyst, and that, for me, made it a very engaging read. Nothing is ever really resolved by the end of the story, but the reader is left with the possibility of redemption to ponder well after the last page is turned. Very well done.
(less)

like 2 likes · see review

Feb 22, 2011 Peter rated it 4 of 5 stars

Are You Sitting Down? is an intense, often disturbing portrait of a small town fictional American family that on the whole proves more satisfying than the sum of its parts.

Those parts are its chapters, each told in the first person by a variety of characters, and titled with the name of that character. It reminds me of As I Lay Dying. Even the title--Are You Sitting Down?--somewhat parallels that of the Faulkner classic. Because of this approach, a little patience is required to get into the no...more Are You Sitting Down? is an intense, often disturbing portrait of a small town fictional American family that on the whole proves more satisfying than the sum of its parts.

Those parts are its chapters, each told in the first person by a variety of characters, and titled with the name of that character. It reminds me of As I Lay Dying. Even the title--Are You Sitting Down?--somewhat parallels that of the Faulkner classic. Because of this approach, a little patience is required to get into the novel's rhythm. The timelines and events between chapters overlap and there are plenty of flashbacks requiring close attention. This overlapping is necessary to create a full picture and it is never redundant. In the end, the accumulation of first person narratives gives an omniscient image--the reader knows more than any single character--of this complex southern family at this sensitive point in their lives.

All of Lorraine White's children are coming to celebrate Christmas with her, the first time they've all gotten together since their father's death a year before. This says something as four of the five siblings live in the same small town as their mother, Ruby Dregs, Tennessee. The fifth, Travis, the middle child, is the outsider, coming in from Memphis, only a two-hour drive away.

Along with material gifts, each sibling brings home emotional baggage of some kind, some burden of guilt, grief, or both. Lorraine's children seem to have been dealt an inordinately high amount of misery, the causes of which could compete with any soap opera: adultery, cancer, death, rape, unplanned childbirth, drug abuse, sexual interference, and others. For much of the novel they--pun intended--unwrap the sordid events of their pasts for the reader, recalling the causes and showing the effects, all while they perform the mundane activities of preparing for the Christmas reunion. For those who enjoy reading psychological puzzles, this novel offers a plethora of possibilities. Only Lorraine, even though diagnosed with terminal cancer, seems a peace with herself. Her main concern, how and when to tell her children.

Travis White drives the story. His narrative provides the opening, closing and more of the individual chapters than the other characters. As the middle child, Trevor's perspective on the family tends to be more central and as the only member living outside of Ruby Dregs, Tennessee, his observations more detached and therefore helpful to the reader. And then Travis's issues surrounding, "coming out," and the prejudice against homosexuality gets wider coverage than most of the others, although it doesn't dominate. What plays a bigger part is the recent death of Travis's lover, Justin Black, to cancer brings in his Justin and his parents as the only non-White family narrators. Mr. and Mrs. Black, an odious and sadly tragic couple I'd never want to meet. Their presence illustrates that, no matter the dysfunctions within a family such as the Whites, things could be worse.

But while Travis is the central figure, I don't seem him as a protagonist. Instead, it's the White family unit that's the protagonist. It's the family that has a goal: to reunite; it's the family that has a plot and conflict: coming to together with clashing histories; and it's the family that has to overcome to reach the climax, not the individuals. Whenever one of the characters narrates it seems like it's the family's consciousness--perhaps even channelled through the dead father, Frank--that speaks as a unit throughout. The writing style remains consistent with all the narratives, objective and honest reportage of facts mixed with highly subjective opinion of interpretation, although the distinctness between the characters comes through.

Are You Sitting Down? doesn't regale us with a tale as much as it impresses itself on us. It casts no judgements but presents subjective individual views that contradict and overlap. The characters are Whites and Blacks but the essence is all the greys in between. Not much ties up at the end for them; there are loose ends and uncertain resolutions. But that's life, isn't it? Yet for the family on the whole there is some redemption at the end. Taken as a whole, Are You Sitting Down? is satisfying and feels complete, a good example of patience rewarded.(less)

like · see review

Dec 30, 2010 Dan Marvin rated it 5 of 5 stars

I've always enjoyed Shannon's writing since I first read Stealing Wishes. When I learned that he had published a new book, I immediately downloaded it to my Kindle and devoured it in short order.

This is an ambitious undertaking, telling the story of one family through the eyes of its members. I enjoyed the fact that everyone was represented, even those family members that were there in memory only. Like every family get together, there is no small amount of drama, jealousy, and feelings of inad...more

like · see review

Mar 07, 2012 Elaine rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: free-kindle-finds, kindle, abuse

The chapter headings reveal its particular narrator and if you’re listening to this on Kindle’s text-to-speech, you might find yourself wondering what just happened if you miss a narrator change.

A particularly dark tale of the dirty deeds of others or the dirty deeds of one’s own making. A rape. A pawing boss with the means to make your life miserable. A deadly overdose. A pervert. An illicit affair. Murder. Some are less dirty deed than they are secret. A discovery in a hidden place. The skelet...more

like · see review

Jan 31, 2012 Melinda Clayton rated it 5 of 5 stars

In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that I met Shannon Yarbrough, online, when he reviewed my own book. Upon receiving the Google “ping” that signified I’d been mentioned somewhere, I looked up Mr. Yarbrough’s profile and, to my surprise, found that we had grown up literally just down the southern road from each other. Highway 51, to be exact. And that, I think, explains a lot. It certainly piqued my interest in reading Mr. Yarbrough’s work.

In the world of self-published and small p...more

like · see review

Feb 18, 2012 Jessica Blankenship rated it 5 of 5 stars

Very good book. Very detailed. Shannon is very good at switching each chapter to a new person. Sometimes when a book is written like this, the readers get lost because it jumps around. This book is nothing like that.

This book is awesome. I couldn’t put it down. I read the entire book within 2-3 days in random spurts. Very interesting and keeps you so engrossed in the book that you just want to keep turning pages.

In this book “everyone knows everyone” in a small town just simply isn’t the truth...more

like · see review

Oct 18, 2012 Nena rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012-reads, indie-books-good-and-bad, unfinished

Kindle:

Yet another Kindle freebie waste of time. I found this one a few days ago on EreaderIQ (love that website!) and sat down for a good read on a quiet afternoon. Boy was I disappointed. The characters were unlikable and the writing mediocre at best. The story line was just all over the map. Nothing in here that gripped me or caught my attention or emotion. It was like watching paint dry.

This is the fourth indie book that I have picked up based on cover art and/or description that just did no...more

like · see review

Dec 15, 2010 Karlin rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: first-reads

Once you start reading "Are You Sitting Down?" it is hard to stop. The characters are highly engaging, so much so that you turn each page wondering what will happen next. I liked the portrayal of family interactions - the secrets we keep, the shared and personal loses we suffer. The reader can identify with the humanity of each family member, even if you find some of their choices repugnant (ie an affair with a student) - none of these people have mental illness (ie: the teacher is not a pedophi...more

like · see review

Sep 18, 2012 Robin Tidwell rated it 5 of 5 stars

Are You Sitting Down?

No, really, are you? Because this book, not coincidentally by the same title, will knock you off your feet!

Shannon Yarbrough, local (St. Ann) author of “Are You Sitting Down?” has written a fabulous tale of a family Christmas gathering, full of secrets and nuances, lively characters, and some not-so-picture-perfect holiday montages.

The novel begins with the well-written, poignant event that leads into the story itself; each chapter is told from the point of view of one of th...more

like · see review

Dec 17, 2010 R.J. Keller rated it 4 of 5 stars

The story unfolds naturally - and sometimes chillingly - as each member of the White and Black families tell the reader their tale. The prose is often beautiful, but unflinching, as heartbreak, addictions, affairs, and even murders are confessed. Although the story comes to a satisfying conclusion, at the end only the reader knows the whole story of these families...and even then we're left with lingering questions. That's a tricky feat for a writer to pull off well, but Shannon Yarbrough does i...more

like · see review

Jan 05, 2011 Tess Rolwes rated it 4 of 5 stars

I started reading “Are You Sitting Down” around noon this past Saturday. I intended to read a chapter or maybe two at the most. Four hours later I was still reading. From the beginning of the prologue I was engaged in the story. I wanted to know more about the people that the author, Shannon Yarbrough, was introducing me to. What made them so real, I think, is the way he chose to tell the story. Each person is given a voice and I got to see the events that happened from their perspective, and ex...more

like · see review

May 09, 2013 Maggie White rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Good fast read. Story of a disfunctional family coming together for Christmas. This is the first time they have all been together since the death of their father. They all have secrets which they think no one else knows. Mostly centres round Lorraine and her relationship with her assorted children. All of them are grown up and have their own problems and dilemmas in life. Good read felt the ending a bit weak though and a little rushed

like · see review

Aug 19, 2012 Diane Porter rated it 4 of 5 stars

Fantastically diverse characters - very engaging. My only issue is that it felt a few hundred pages too short....I wanted to know more....all these intriguing characters are introduced but never developed, their journeys end prematurely without the resolution I would have liked.

like 1 like · see review

Dec 13, 2012 Rabi rated it 4 of 5 stars

A bit dreary at some parts, but overall a fascinating look at the ups and downs (in this book mostly downs) that is life. A surprisingly good representation of the secrets we keep and the common and rare tragedies people go through.

like · see review

Nov 17, 2012 Ashley rated it 1 of 5 stars

I'm really surprised about all the 5 and 4 star ratings of this book. this was a freebie. I'm glad I didn't pay for it. I'm pretty bummed that I hated it so much because it really seemed like it would be a great book by the blurb.

like · see review

Aug 10, 2012 Theresa rated it 5 of 5 stars

I loved Are You Sitting Down?. It made me laugh, and cry, and kept me in suspense. The first three pages of the book are so well written and deeply touching that I waited a day before I continued so I could really absorb what I had read. The story is told from the point of view of several different characters who are connected by family. Each character's voice is unique and true to form. I always enjoy this type of narration and Shannon Yarbrough excelled at it. Overall, great story, great writi...more

like 1 like · see review

Jun 20, 2012 Anne Hartman rated it 4 of 5 stars

I will definitely be reading more of Shannon Yarbrough - this book was great. I like the characters, the points of view it was written in, the fact that all of the characters were flawed...good read.

like · see review

Aug 06, 2012 Julie rated it 3 of 5 stars

loved it all the way through because I thought it was going to build to a big climax and resolution ...but the end was disappointing. (

like · see review

Jun 16, 2012 Tracy Oliphant rated it 5 of 5 stars

One of my favorite books..love how everything tied together..

like · see review

Jul 08, 2012 Renz rated it 4 of 5 stars

this book was really interesting and showed the complexities of human life.....loved it...

like · see review

Jul 23, 2012 Jessica Klinkosh rated it 5 of 5 stars

Great Book. Wish that it hadn't ended!!!!

like · see review

Dec 28, 2012 Mandie rated it 2 of 5 stars

When I got to the end, I thought, "Really? That is how it ends?" Unsatisfying.

like · see review

Jul 04, 2012 Tara rated it 1 of 5 stars

Didn't finish the whole thing, didn't like.

like · see review

Dec 23, 2010 Joann rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: first-reads, adult-fiction, holiday

I won this book through First Reads. It's a well-written novel that draws the reader in through the honest and realistic character depictions.

like · see review

Oct 19, 2012 Angie rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is one of those books that I picked up, started reading and almost put down. I want to say that it's an onion, which reveals itself layer by layer, but it's more than that because it doesn't look like an onion, so you don't expect the way it opens up. It is more like an apple; wholesome, all-American, until you understand the dysfunction in this family. Have to say that I, surprisingly, enjoyed this book and it left me thinking about it for days.

like · see review

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 12 13 next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

There are no discussion topics on this book yet. Be the first to start one »

Recommend it | Stats | Recent status updates

combine
Other Editions (1)

Popular Shelves

to-read

233 shelves

kindle

13 shelves

fiction

5 shelves

currently-reading

3 shelves

kindle-freebies

2 shelves

first-reads

2 shelves

ready-to-read

1 shelf

tbr-kindle

1 shelf

families

1 shelf

About Shannon Yarbrough

I was born and raised in Dyersburg, TN, lived in Memphis for six years, and currently live in St. Louis, Missouri. The south has a huge influence on my writing. I am the author of three books: The Other Side of What (published in 2003), Stealing Wishes (published in 2008), and Are You Sitting Down? (published in 2010). I love to read. Also love to write poetry. Other hobbies include painting, gard...more

More about Shannon Yarbrough...

Books by Shannon Yarbrough

The Deluxe Pod Pocket Guide To Marketing & Selling Your Book On Amazon

More…

Share This Book

Facebook Twitter Your website

Trivia About Are You Sitting D...

No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »

title link	preview: Are You Sitting Down?
avg rating	preview: Are You Sitting Down? Goodreads rating: 3.47 (101 ratings)
small image	preview: click here [close]
med image	preview: click here [close]
BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9625946-are-you-sitting-down?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348826237l/9625946.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9625946-are-you-sitting-down?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Are You Sitting Down? by Shannon Yarbrough[/url]

Are You Sitting Down?

Friend Reviews

Lists with This Book

Community Reviews

new topicDiscuss This Book

combineOther Editions (1)

Popular Shelves

About Shannon Yarbrough

Books by Shannon Yarbrough

Share This Book

Share This Book on Your Website

Trivia About Are You Sitting D...

new topic
Discuss This Book

combine
Other Editions (1)