Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood in The Complete Idiots Guide to the Ultimate Reading List

Sep 11, 2011 Lisa (Harmonybites) rated it it was ok

Shelves: contemporary, fiction, literary-fiction, novels, chick-lit, romance, ultimate-reading-list, popular-fiction

In a way I feel like I'm being stingy giving this only two stars. This is the last book on a list of over twenty I've tried from a chicklit/women's fiction recommendation list. Style-wise, this is at the top. I'd say that, along with The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing, this was the only book listed that had the quality that approaches literary fiction--it's lyrical at times, witty, quotable, with a narrative that mixes first and third person, letters and newspaper clippings from the scrapbo In a way I feel like I'm being stingy giving this only two stars. This is the last book on a list of over twenty I've tried from a chicklit/women's fiction recommendation list. Style-wise, this is at the top. I'd say that, along with The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing, this was the only book listed that had the quality that approaches literary fiction--it's lyrical at times, witty, quotable, with a narrative that mixes first and third person, letters and newspaper clippings from the scrapbook of "Ya-Ya-rabilia." It's a novel that celebrates a friendship of nearly 60 years from 1934 to 1993, and a rocky mother/daughter relationship.

It's also about forgiveness, the subject of one of the three quotations that front the book that tells us we all "need to forgive and be forgiven every day, every hour." That could make for a very moving book, but I remained unmoved because I absolutely hated the central character, the "Queen" of the "Ya-Ya Sisterhood," Vivi Walker. When the book begins in 1993, she's just cut her daughter, Sidda, out of her life for the crime of telling the New York Times "lies" about how Vivi beat her with a belt. They're not lies though, as we learn just pages in. They're not even "exaggerated" as Ya-Ya sister Necie claims to Sidda. They're minimized. Vivi beat ten-year-old Sidda and her younger sister and two brothers with a belt until they were bloody. Sidda still bears the physical (and emotional) scars thirty years later. And, as we learn just a few pages in, to the present day Vivi blames Sidda for not stopping her. Sadly, so does Sidda. And not only is Vivi still drinking all these years later after her abuse of her children fueled by drink, pages into the book in the present day of the novel, she's handing over a Bloody Mary to her fellow senior citizen Ya-Ya Teensy for her to drink as Teensy drives the car.

*SPOILERS BE HERE BELOW IF YOU CARE*

Sidda is constantly begging her mother for forgiveness through out the book, celebrating her mother's friendship with the Ya-Ya sisterhood, excusing and worshiping her mother for her "vivid" and "vivacious" spirit. It's all very "Ya-Ya-No." (Ya-Ya speak for "pathetic" we're told.) Yes, if you've reached 40 years old, it's way past time to let go of the anger and stop blaming your parents for your problems. But that's different from forgiveness and reconciliation. To really forgive, the person who hurt you needs to be sorry and say so and stop hurting you. It sucks sure if they die and never give you that, and if they don't, you have to move on. But if that doesn't happen that doesn't mean they should get a pass just because they'll be the only parents you'll ever have. Not when the abuse is this extreme and still ongoing.

I mean, I know. I've read that Philip Larken poem "This Be the Verse." It's true. Parents screw you up, but they were screwed up first. They're human. And the book makes Vivi understandable, and therefore potentially forgivable. But I don't think she (and the book) come anywhere near earning the Hallmark moment ending. ...more

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