Siddalee Walker's mother Vivi disowns her daughter when a reporter, who interviews the 40-year-old, successful director, describes her mother as a "tap dancing child abuser". Devastated, Sidda postpones her wedding. The Ya-Yas, Vivi's strong circle of friends since childhood, are horrified and agree to send Siddalee the scrapbook of "Divine Secrets" to try and help her to understand her mother and herself.

Sidda submerges herself in the wild, wondrous and wicked world of the Ya-Yas as she reads through half-a-century's worth of letters and clippings contained in the Ya-Ya Sisterhood's parcel of "Divine Secrets". Middle-class Louisiana quakes as the quartet makes its way through adolescence: from being disqualified from the Shirley-Temple-look-a-like competition because Teensy did a "poot", to attending the premiere of Gone with the Wind in Atlanta, only for Vivi's hoop skirt, "much to her confusion, to go entirely over the head of the person sitting in the seat in front of her", to spending a night in jail after floating naked on a hot southern evening in the town's water cooler.

Rebecca Wells, author of Little Altars Everywhere (in which Siddalee Walker describes the anguishes of childhood), has created a beautifully crafted, penetrating insight into society, friendship, the mother/daughter divide and religion. No subject is taboo as you dip in and out of the lives of Vivi, Teensy, Caro and Necie--the Ya Yas. --Nicola Perry

Wonderful!, 13 Jul 2007
I hated the film version of this but absolutely loved the novel - luckily I read the book first, which is what I advise you you do and if you have already seen the film - don't worry - it's nothing like! I found the style of writing enchanting (and reminiscent of Fannie Flagg - I am a big devotee of her novels) and absorbing and the story is simply lovely! I think it feels very real which is why it has such magnetism and will have you smiling till the very last page. Highly recommended.

For Women Friends Everywhere, 26 Mar 2006
I recommended this book to our book club and, for once, everyone was in agreement - WE LOVED IT! On the surface this is a mother/daughter saga but in reality it's about a circle of friends bound together through thick and thin. The writing is engaging and the pace is enegetic. The book makes you really take stock of your own life.
Highly recommended.
PS ~Read the book - don't see the film - it's not a patch on the writing.

A real stunner, 30 Oct 2003
What a fantastic read. I defy anyone to read it without crying. Definitely a book that every woman should read; and miles more poignant and satisfying than BJD.

Murmur from a mere male ?, 15 Oct 2003
If a humble (British) male is permitted a view on this, I'll say forget all those 'Mars' & 'Venus' theories. Read this book and a few more males may get to understand why we guys so often just don't understand!
Having just viewed the movie, it's prompted memories of reading the book about a year ago. Both experiences were thoroughly enjoyable - in a vividly coloured, brightly populated, emotionally roller-coasting kind of way.
I've never been to Louisiana, but I felt I could bathe up to my chin in the lushly sensual atmosphere created here.
I have, though, experienced something of the colourful/dysfunctional personalities of some of the main characters, and there are many strong resonant chords to be felt. As others too have said, there are good lessons, delightfully conveyed, to be learned here - about shared lives, parenthood, childhood (the good, and the less so), friendships, understanding, betrayal, and most of all, that sometimes most testing act of grace - forgiveness.
I laughed out loud, I quietly wept, I got completely drawn in. Thank you Rebecca Wells. Go read it - the characters just sashay off the pages straight into your heart - I loved it!

Lives up to the title.........DIVINE!!, 20 Jul 2003
This definitely rates amongst my top five favourite novels. I absolutely loved it. So real and atmospheric. I really felt I was in the Deep South!

The characters are totally real and alive and seem to come out of the page. This is a book with depth and life. It is very much about being compassionate and empathising, rather than blaming. But that makes it sound boring. And it's not. It's wacky and fun. In parts it is real 'laugh out loud' stuff and other parts were heartbreaking.But on the whole a very positive book. Just wonderful!

Little Altars Everywhere is much bleaker than its predecessor Divine Secrets of The Ya-Ya Sisterhood, told by Rebecca Wells with a whisky drawl. Divine Secrets was about heart break, bad parenting and loyalty, spiked with a delicious spitefulness that Scarlett O'Hara would have adored. It was impossible not to be bewitched and bewildered by the Southern charm and molten rage of Vivi and her friends, the Ya-Yas. Bad things happened but narrator Siddalee Walker, Vivi's eldest child, was left with "love and wonder" for her desperado, drunken mother. The charm and the drunken revelry is there in Little Altars Everywhere but it's more desperate and hung over and destructive.

Siddalee, once again, is the hub of the stories, a smart and sensitive raconteur, but the other children also take their part in unpicking the legend that is Vivi. Here Vivi Walker is larger than life and twice as scary, a sort of Mommie Dearest character where affectionate gestures are tainted with inappropriateness, and repressed anger and boredom snakes out into harsh violence. All her children are damaged in some way. Lulu becomes the town's best shop lifter, "The Princess of Gimme", whilst Baylor is depressed and emotionally "parked at the edge of a graveyard." Little Shep's story "Snuggling" goes a long way to explaining the crazy sadness of the Walker children; it tells of Vivi climbing into bed with him: "She looked at me and whispered, Give me a hug, Little Shep, give me a hug and a kiss ... then she reached down and started to rub her hand across one of my nipples." And "Willetta's Witness" brings on the darkness as all four children are "lined up against the wall of that brick house and everyone of them buck naked. Miz Vivi out there with a belt, whuppin' them like horses". Despite all this Little Altars isn't a depressing read; the whiplash wit and the whiskey phrases add some measure of merriment to the misery. --Eithne Farry

Wonderful!, 13 Jul 2007
I hated the film version of this but absolutely loved the novel - luckily I read the book first, which is what I advise you you do and if you have already seen the film - don't worry - it's nothing like! I found the style of writing enchanting (and reminiscent of Fannie Flagg - I am a big devotee of her novels) and absorbing and the story is simply lovely! I think it feels very real which is why it has such magnetism and will have you smiling till the very last page. Highly recommended.

For Women Friends Everywhere, 26 Mar 2006
I recommended this book to our book club and, for once, everyone was in agreement - WE LOVED IT! On the surface this is a mother/daughter saga but in reality it's about a circle of friends bound together through thick and thin. The writing is engaging and the pace is enegetic. The book makes you really take stock of your own life.
Highly recommended.
PS ~Read the book - don't see the film - it's not a patch on the writing.

A real stunner, 30 Oct 2003
What a fantastic read. I defy anyone to read it without crying. Definitely a book that every woman should read; and miles more poignant and satisfying than BJD.

Murmur from a mere male ?, 15 Oct 2003
If a humble (British) male is permitted a view on this, I'll say forget all those 'Mars' & 'Venus' theories. Read this book and a few more males may get to understand why we guys so often just don't understand!
Having just viewed the movie, it's prompted memories of reading the book about a year ago. Both experiences were thoroughly enjoyable - in a vividly coloured, brightly populated, emotionally roller-coasting kind of way.
I've never been to Louisiana, but I felt I could bathe up to my chin in the lushly sensual atmosphere created here.
I have, though, experienced something of the colourful/dysfunctional personalities of some of the main characters, and there are many strong resonant chords to be felt. As others too have said, there are good lessons, delightfully conveyed, to be learned here - about shared lives, parenthood, childhood (the good, and the less so), friendships, understanding, betrayal, and most of all, that sometimes most testing act of grace - forgiveness.
I laughed out loud, I quietly wept, I got completely drawn in. Thank you Rebecca Wells. Go read it - the characters just sashay off the pages straight into your heart - I loved it!

Lives up to the title.........DIVINE!!, 20 Jul 2003
This definitely rates amongst my top five favourite novels. I absolutely loved it. So real and atmospheric. I really felt I was in the Deep South!

The characters are totally real and alive and seem to come out of the page. This is a book with depth and life. It is very much about being compassionate and empathising, rather than blaming. But that makes it sound boring. And it's not. It's wacky and fun. In parts it is real 'laugh out loud' stuff and other parts were heartbreaking.But on the whole a very positive book. Just wonderful!

Utterly joyful - and utterly painful, 05 Aug 2001
Like another reviewer, I really enjoyed Divine Secrets of The Ya Ya Sisterhood - but found this book much more profound and well crafted. The journey Wells takes us on is very clever. You start off reading something which is fizzy, funny, like reading champagne - and she slowly darkens the mood with the successive stories and voices. She constantly pulls the carpet from under you, just when you think you might be able to define a character as hero or villain, she flips your analysis on its head, and really makes you see the humanity at the heart of each character.

Can we have more please Ms Wells?

Better than the Ya Ya Sisterhood, 30 Mar 2001
I read the Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood several years ago but far prefered this prequel which seems somehow fresher than the novel for which she is famed. Perhaps it helps to have read 'the sisterhood' beforehand, but I suspect not. It's funny & sad in equal measures & extremely readable.

Delightful but equally shocking and moving., 25 Feb 2001
I loved the "Divine Secrets" book and I was curious about where Rebecca Wells might take us this time. "Little Altars" is very different from "Divine Secrets" in that you see much more from the perspective of the young children growing up with their outrageous mother, Vivi. In the first half of the book there is much fun and excitement and despite the obvious flaws in Vivi's style of parenting you feel that the Walker children are certainly living life to the full. The early chapter "Skinny-Dipping" is hilariously delightful!

However, the mood changes abruptly in the second half of the book and you begin to see the darker side of the Walker family life. My view of Vivi changed greatly having read of the truly terrible things she did to her children (as narrated by Willetta, for example). The chapter by Chaney I thought was the most moving in the book, the last couple pages of which I read several times because it was so beautifully expressed. The only chapter I did not enjoy was "Catfish Dreams" which I felt was much less relevant and less personal than the heartfelt stories told in the other chapters.

Rebecca Wells is certainly very skilled at writing in the many diverse styles to suit the different narrators that contribute to this book. The stark realities of the dividing lines between the lives of Blacks and Whites in Louisiana is also very movingly portrayed. I can heartily recommend this title, and I don't think you need to have read "Divine Secrets" to fully appreciate it. This book is VERY American, and as an English reader I found there were several words and phrases that I didn't understand, but I comprehended enough from the context and I think in the end the sometimes strange language adds to the charm of the book.

a bittersweet book to break your heart, 21 Feb 2001
This book will break your heart, and you will love it. You will be left feeling lost, as you will have all these cares, but no where to put them. it will leave you wondering why you have not lived a life so bitter sweet. You will feel such real emotion for the characters, that you will love them and hate them, and when the book is over you will miss them dearly as if you have lost true friends. The only other book that made me feel so much alive is "The Divine Sectres of the Ya YA Sisterhood" also by Rebecca Wells.

she's done it again, 04 Oct 2000
an amazing tour de force - that focuses more on the walker family than on the ya-ya's. it was breathtaking in the manner that it completely changed yuor piont of view about vivi - in that we quite liked the drunken madness she was in the ya-ya sisterhood. however in little alters you recieve the piont of view about life growing up in the walker family from all the family - including the hired help. the book makes you think, and transports you to louisiana, to a place you wants to stay forever - in the ya-ya sisterhood.

Siddalee Walker's mother Vivi disowns her daughter when a reporter, who interviews the 40-year-old, successful director, describes her mother as a "tap dancing child abuser". Devastated, Sidda postpones her wedding. The Ya-Yas, Vivi's strong circle of friends since childhood, are horrified and agree to send Siddalee the scrapbook of "Divine Secrets" to try and help her to understand her mother and herself.

Sidda submerges herself in the wild, wondrous and wicked world of the Ya-Yas as she reads through half-a-century's worth of letters and clippings contained in the Ya-Ya Sisterhood's parcel of "Divine Secrets". Middle-class Louisiana quakes as the quartet makes its way through adolescence: from being disqualified from the Shirley-Temple-look-a-like competition because Teensy did a "poot", to attending the premiere of Gone with the Wind in Atlanta, only for Vivi's hoop skirt, "much to her confusion, to go entirely over the head of the person sitting in the seat in front of her", to spending a night in jail after floating naked on a hot southern evening in the town's water cooler.

Rebecca Wells, author of Little Altars Everywhere (in which Siddalee Walker describes the anguishes of childhood), has created a beautifully crafted, penetrating insight into society, friendship, the mother/daughter divide and religion. No subject is taboo as you dip in and out of the lives of Vivi, Teensy, Caro and Necie--the Ya Yas. --Nicola Perry

Wonderful!, 13 Jul 2007
I hated the film version of this but absolutely loved the novel - luckily I read the book first, which is what I advise you you do and if you have already seen the film - don't worry - it's nothing like! I found the style of writing enchanting (and reminiscent of Fannie Flagg - I am a big devotee of her novels) and absorbing and the story is simply lovely! I think it feels very real which is why it has such magnetism and will have you smiling till the very last page. Highly recommended.

For Women Friends Everywhere, 26 Mar 2006
I recommended this book to our book club and, for once, everyone was in agreement - WE LOVED IT! On the surface this is a mother/daughter saga but in reality it's about a circle of friends bound together through thick and thin. The writing is engaging and the pace is enegetic. The book makes you really take stock of your own life.
Highly recommended.
PS ~Read the book - don't see the film - it's not a patch on the writing.

A real stunner, 30 Oct 2003
What a fantastic read. I defy anyone to read it without crying. Definitely a book that every woman should read; and miles more poignant and satisfying than BJD.

Murmur from a mere male ?, 15 Oct 2003
If a humble (British) male is permitted a view on this, I'll say forget all those 'Mars' & 'Venus' theories. Read this book and a few more males may get to understand why we guys so often just don't understand!
Having just viewed the movie, it's prompted memories of reading the book about a year ago. Both experiences were thoroughly enjoyable - in a vividly coloured, brightly populated, emotionally roller-coasting kind of way.
I've never been to Louisiana, but I felt I could bathe up to my chin in the lushly sensual atmosphere created here.
I have, though, experienced something of the colourful/dysfunctional personalities of some of the main characters, and there are many strong resonant chords to be felt. As others too have said, there are good lessons, delightfully conveyed, to be learned here - about shared lives, parenthood, childhood (the good, and the less so), friendships, understanding, betrayal, and most of all, that sometimes most testing act of grace - forgiveness.
I laughed out loud, I quietly wept, I got completely drawn in. Thank you Rebecca Wells. Go read it - the characters just sashay off the pages straight into your heart - I loved it!

Lives up to the title.........DIVINE!!, 20 Jul 2003
This definitely rates amongst my top five favourite novels. I absolutely loved it. So real and atmospheric. I really felt I was in the Deep South!

The characters are totally real and alive and seem to come out of the page. This is a book with depth and life. It is very much about being compassionate and empathising, rather than blaming. But that makes it sound boring. And it's not. It's wacky and fun. In parts it is real 'laugh out loud' stuff and other parts were heartbreaking.But on the whole a very positive book. Just wonderful!

Utterly joyful - and utterly painful, 05 Aug 2001
Like another reviewer, I really enjoyed Divine Secrets of The Ya Ya Sisterhood - but found this book much more profound and well crafted. The journey Wells takes us on is very clever. You start off reading something which is fizzy, funny, like reading champagne - and she slowly darkens the mood with the successive stories and voices. She constantly pulls the carpet from under you, just when you think you might be able to define a character as hero or villain, she flips your analysis on its head, and really makes you see the humanity at the heart of each character.

Can we have more please Ms Wells?

Better than the Ya Ya Sisterhood, 30 Mar 2001
I read the Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood several years ago but far prefered this prequel which seems somehow fresher than the novel for which she is famed. Perhaps it helps to have read 'the sisterhood' beforehand, but I suspect not. It's funny & sad in equal measures & extremely readable.

Delightful but equally shocking and moving., 25 Feb 2001
I loved the "Divine Secrets" book and I was curious about where Rebecca Wells might take us this time. "Little Altars" is very different from "Divine Secrets" in that you see much more from the perspective of the young children growing up with their outrageous mother, Vivi. In the first half of the book there is much fun and excitement and despite the obvious flaws in Vivi's style of parenting you feel that the Walker children are certainly living life to the full. The early chapter "Skinny-Dipping" is hilariously delightful!

However, the mood changes abruptly in the second half of the book and you begin to see the darker side of the Walker family life. My view of Vivi changed greatly having read of the truly terrible things she did to her children (as narrated by Willetta, for example). The chapter by Chaney I thought was the most moving in the book, the last couple pages of which I read several times because it was so beautifully expressed. The only chapter I did not enjoy was "Catfish Dreams" which I felt was much less relevant and less personal than the heartfelt stories told in the other chapters.

Rebecca Wells is certainly very skilled at writing in the many diverse styles to suit the different narrators that contribute to this book. The stark realities of the dividing lines between the lives of Blacks and Whites in Louisiana is also very movingly portrayed. I can heartily recommend this title, and I don't think you need to have read "Divine Secrets" to fully appreciate it. This book is VERY American, and as an English reader I found there were several words and phrases that I didn't understand, but I comprehended enough from the context and I think in the end the sometimes strange language adds to the charm of the book.

a bittersweet book to break your heart, 21 Feb 2001
This book will break your heart, and you will love it. You will be left feeling lost, as you will have all these cares, but no where to put them. it will leave you wondering why you have not lived a life so bitter sweet. You will feel such real emotion for the characters, that you will love them and hate them, and when the book is over you will miss them dearly as if you have lost true friends. The only other book that made me feel so much alive is "The Divine Sectres of the Ya YA Sisterhood" also by Rebecca Wells.

she's done it again, 04 Oct 2000
an amazing tour de force - that focuses more on the walker family than on the ya-ya's. it was breathtaking in the manner that it completely changed yuor piont of view about vivi - in that we quite liked the drunken madness she was in the ya-ya sisterhood. however in little alters you recieve the piont of view about life growing up in the walker family from all the family - including the hired help. the book makes you think, and transports you to louisiana, to a place you wants to stay forever - in the ya-ya sisterhood.

Wonderful!, 13 Jul 2007
I hated the film version of this but absolutely loved the novel - luckily I read the book first, which is what I advise you you do and if you have already seen the film - don't worry - it's nothing like! I found the style of writing enchanting (and reminiscent of Fannie Flagg - I am a big devotee of her novels) and absorbing and the story is simply lovely! I think it feels very real which is why it has such magnetism and will have you smiling till the very last page. Highly recommended.

For Women Friends Everywhere, 26 Mar 2006
I recommended this book to our book club and, for once, everyone was in agreement - WE LOVED IT! On the surface this is a mother/daughter saga but in reality it's about a circle of friends bound together through thick and thin. The writing is engaging and the pace is enegetic. The book makes you really take stock of your own life.
Highly recommended.
PS ~Read the book - don't see the film - it's not a patch on the writing.

A real stunner, 30 Oct 2003
What a fantastic read. I defy anyone to read it without crying. Definitely a book that every woman should read; and miles more poignant and satisfying than BJD.

Murmur from a mere male ?, 15 Oct 2003
If a humble (British) male is permitted a view on this, I'll say forget all those 'Mars' & 'Venus' theories. Read this book and a few more males may get to understand why we guys so often just don't understand!
Having just viewed the movie, it's prompted memories of reading the book about a year ago. Both experiences were thoroughly enjoyable - in a vividly coloured, brightly populated, emotionally roller-coasting kind of way.
I've never been to Louisiana, but I felt I could bathe up to my chin in the lushly sensual atmosphere created here.
I have, though, experienced something of the colourful/dysfunctional personalities of some of the main characters, and there are many strong resonant chords to be felt. As others too have said, there are good lessons, delightfully conveyed, to be learned here - about shared lives, parenthood, childhood (the good, and the less so), friendships, understanding, betrayal, and most of all, that sometimes most testing act of grace - forgiveness.
I laughed out loud, I quietly wept, I got completely drawn in. Thank you Rebecca Wells. Go read it - the characters just sashay off the pages straight into your heart - I loved it!

Lives up to the title.........DIVINE!!, 20 Jul 2003
This definitely rates amongst my top five favourite novels. I absolutely loved it. So real and atmospheric. I really felt I was in the Deep South!

The characters are totally real and alive and seem to come out of the page. This is a book with depth and life. It is very much about being compassionate and empathising, rather than blaming. But that makes it sound boring. And it's not. It's wacky and fun. In parts it is real 'laugh out loud' stuff and other parts were heartbreaking.But on the whole a very positive book. Just wonderful!

Those sassy southern belle-dames are back. Hallelujah. Fans of the Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood will leap for joy. And, to be fair, if you didn't get swept along in the divine madness of the Ya-Yas first time around, there's still plenty to hold your interest in this latest look at the Louisiana lives of the four gals and their increasingly blooming offspring, dahling. That's if you like your words candy-coated and sweet enough to calm a honey-bee. For the rest of us, a good flossing afterwards won't go amiss.

Rebecca Wells quite rightly recognises where her bread is buttered and delivers another slice of the four ladies and their inimitable style of living, hot on the high heels of a Hollywood script. Find out how the Ya-Yas first met, way back when, and how they got all grown-up and married. There's kids a plenty--well, for the sisterhood anyway and, against some odds, most of them turn out pretty decent folk.

Parts of Ya-Yas in Bloom is told from the point of view of Vivi Abbott Walker's children, particularly Siddalee and Baylor. So while we swing back in time to the thirties and the early days of the sisterhood, we also travel through the sixties and the arrival in the good ol' USA of four lads from Liverpool and on into the present day and the modern trials of career women.

There's even a plot of a kind, although not much to speak of--you can see it coming from afar--and its outcome is as predictable as Vivi's lipstick. It seems that if you're not in the sisterhood, then you're out. And life will just never be as much fun. ---Carey Green

Wonderful!, 13 Jul 2007
I hated the film version of this but absolutely loved the novel - luckily I read the book first, which is what I advise you you do and if you have already seen the film - don't worry - it's nothing like! I found the style of writing enchanting (and reminiscent of Fannie Flagg - I am a big devotee of her novels) and absorbing and the story is simply lovely! I think it feels very real which is why it has such magnetism and will have you smiling till the very last page. Highly recommended.

For Women Friends Everywhere, 26 Mar 2006
I recommended this book to our book club and, for once, everyone was in agreement - WE LOVED IT! On the surface this is a mother/daughter saga but in reality it's about a circle of friends bound together through thick and thin. The writing is engaging and the pace is enegetic. The book makes you really take stock of your own life.
Highly recommended.
PS ~Read the book - don't see the film - it's not a patch on the writing.

A real stunner, 30 Oct 2003
What a fantastic read. I defy anyone to read it without crying. Definitely a book that every woman should read; and miles more poignant and satisfying than BJD.

Murmur from a mere male ?, 15 Oct 2003
If a humble (British) male is permitted a view on this, I'll say forget all those 'Mars' & 'Venus' theories. Read this book and a few more males may get to understand why we guys so often just don't understand!
Having just viewed the movie, it's prompted memories of reading the book about a year ago. Both experiences were thoroughly enjoyable - in a vividly coloured, brightly populated, emotionally roller-coasting kind of way.
I've never been to Louisiana, but I felt I could bathe up to my chin in the lushly sensual atmosphere created here.
I have, though, experienced something of the colourful/dysfunctional personalities of some of the main characters, and there are many strong resonant chords to be felt. As others too have said, there are good lessons, delightfully conveyed, to be learned here - about shared lives, parenthood, childhood (the good, and the less so), friendships, understanding, betrayal, and most of all, that sometimes most testing act of grace - forgiveness.
I laughed out loud, I quietly wept, I got completely drawn in. Thank you Rebecca Wells. Go read it - the characters just sashay off the pages straight into your heart - I loved it!

Lives up to the title.........DIVINE!!, 20 Jul 2003
This definitely rates amongst my top five favourite novels. I absolutely loved it. So real and atmospheric. I really felt I was in the Deep South!

The characters are totally real and alive and seem to come out of the page. This is a book with depth and life. It is very much about being compassionate and empathising, rather than blaming. But that makes it sound boring. And it's not. It's wacky and fun. In parts it is real 'laugh out loud' stuff and other parts were heartbreaking.But on the whole a very positive book. Just wonderful!

Utterly joyful - and utterly painful, 05 Aug 2001
Like another reviewer, I really enjoyed Divine Secrets of The Ya Ya Sisterhood - but found this book much more profound and well crafted. The journey Wells takes us on is very clever. You start off reading something which is fizzy, funny, like reading champagne - and she slowly darkens the mood with the successive stories and voices. She constantly pulls the carpet from under you, just when you think you might be able to define a character as hero or villain, she flips your analysis on its head, and really makes you see the humanity at the heart of each character.

Can we have more please Ms Wells?

Better than the Ya Ya Sisterhood, 30 Mar 2001
I read the Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood several years ago but far prefered this prequel which seems somehow fresher than the novel for which she is famed. Perhaps it helps to have read 'the sisterhood' beforehand, but I suspect not. It's funny & sad in equal measures & extremely readable.

Delightful but equally shocking and moving., 25 Feb 2001
I loved the "Divine Secrets" book and I was curious about where Rebecca Wells might take us this time. "Little Altars" is very different from "Divine Secrets" in that you see much more from the perspective of the young children growing up with their outrageous mother, Vivi. In the first half of the book there is much fun and excitement and despite the obvious flaws in Vivi's style of parenting you feel that the Walker children are certainly living life to the full. The early chapter "Skinny-Dipping" is hilariously delightful!

However, the mood changes abruptly in the second half of the book and you begin to see the darker side of the Walker family life. My view of Vivi changed greatly having read of the truly terrible things she did to her children (as narrated by Willetta, for example). The chapter by Chaney I thought was the most moving in the book, the last couple pages of which I read several times because it was so beautifully expressed. The only chapter I did not enjoy was "Catfish Dreams" which I felt was much less relevant and less personal than the heartfelt stories told in the other chapters.

Rebecca Wells is certainly very skilled at writing in the many diverse styles to suit the different narrators that contribute to this book. The stark realities of the dividing lines between the lives of Blacks and Whites in Louisiana is also very movingly portrayed. I can heartily recommend this title, and I don't think you need to have read "Divine Secrets" to fully appreciate it. This book is VERY American, and as an English reader I found there were several words and phrases that I didn't understand, but I comprehended enough from the context and I think in the end the sometimes strange language adds to the charm of the book.

a bittersweet book to break your heart, 21 Feb 2001
This book will break your heart, and you will love it. You will be left feeling lost, as you will have all these cares, but no where to put them. it will leave you wondering why you have not lived a life so bitter sweet. You will feel such real emotion for the characters, that you will love them and hate them, and when the book is over you will miss them dearly as if you have lost true friends. The only other book that made me feel so much alive is "The Divine Sectres of the Ya YA Sisterhood" also by Rebecca Wells.

she's done it again, 04 Oct 2000
an amazing tour de force - that focuses more on the walker family than on the ya-ya's. it was breathtaking in the manner that it completely changed yuor piont of view about vivi - in that we quite liked the drunken madness she was in the ya-ya sisterhood. however in little alters you recieve the piont of view about life growing up in the walker family from all the family - including the hired help. the book makes you think, and transports you to louisiana, to a place you wants to stay forever - in the ya-ya sisterhood.

Wonderful!, 13 Jul 2007
I hated the film version of this but absolutely loved the novel - luckily I read the book first, which is what I advise you you do and if you have already seen the film - don't worry - it's nothing like! I found the style of writing enchanting (and reminiscent of Fannie Flagg - I am a big devotee of her novels) and absorbing and the story is simply lovely! I think it feels very real which is why it has such magnetism and will have you smiling till the very last page. Highly recommended.

For Women Friends Everywhere, 26 Mar 2006
I recommended this book to our book club and, for once, everyone was in agreement - WE LOVED IT! On the surface this is a mother/daughter saga but in reality it's about a circle of friends bound together through thick and thin. The writing is engaging and the pace is enegetic. The book makes you really take stock of your own life.
Highly recommended.
PS ~Read the book - don't see the film - it's not a patch on the writing.

A real stunner, 30 Oct 2003
What a fantastic read. I defy anyone to read it without crying. Definitely a book that every woman should read; and miles more poignant and satisfying than BJD.

Murmur from a mere male ?, 15 Oct 2003
If a humble (British) male is permitted a view on this, I'll say forget all those 'Mars' & 'Venus' theories. Read this book and a few more males may get to understand why we guys so often just don't understand!
Having just viewed the movie, it's prompted memories of reading the book about a year ago. Both experiences were thoroughly enjoyable - in a vividly coloured, brightly populated, emotionally roller-coasting kind of way.
I've never been to Louisiana, but I felt I could bathe up to my chin in the lushly sensual atmosphere created here.
I have, though, experienced something of the colourful/dysfunctional personalities of some of the main characters, and there are many strong resonant chords to be felt. As others too have said, there are good lessons, delightfully conveyed, to be learned here - about shared lives, parenthood, childhood (the good, and the less so), friendships, understanding, betrayal, and most of all, that sometimes most testing act of grace - forgiveness.
I laughed out loud, I quietly wept, I got completely drawn in. Thank you Rebecca Wells. Go read it - the characters just sashay off the pages straight into your heart - I loved it!

Lives up to the title.........DIVINE!!, 20 Jul 2003
This definitely rates amongst my top five favourite novels. I absolutely loved it. So real and atmospheric. I really felt I was in the Deep South!

The characters are totally real and alive and seem to come out of the page. This is a book with depth and life. It is very much about being compassionate and empathising, rather than blaming. But that makes it sound boring. And it's not. It's wacky and fun. In parts it is real 'laugh out loud' stuff and other parts were heartbreaking.But on the whole a very positive book. Just wonderful!

Ya Yas in Bloom, 05 Jul 2005
This third Ya Ya book is not quite as good or as gripping as the first two, probably down to the more anecdotal style. That said, it is still wonderfully well written and hugely evocative of the American South, so would definitely recommend it.