5/01/02

The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
By Rebecca Wells

The minute I read this book, I knew eventually it would happen. The story screams "Hollywood adaptation" so I figured I just had to wait till a film version came out of this book by Rebecca Wells (no relation to me, unfortunately enough). I didn't wait long, and it looks from this side of the premiere weekend like it should be a pretty good version of the story (I'll perhaps add a movie review later). I have already arranged a "YaYa" weekend with my group of friends, some of whom are going under protest because the book didn't do much for them. It does happen-- but since togetherness is part of what the book is about, we're forcing them to go to the movie anyway. And, in the interest of "getting on the bandwagon" of all the other sites and places out there reviewing the book because the movie's coming out, here is a quickie review of a book I read long, long ago and would read again.

The novel features the "coming of age/coming to terms" stories of two women-- mother and daughter Siddalee and Vivi Walker. In the process of the revelations of these two women's sometimes rocky lives, we also learn about the sometimes difficult experiences of Vivi's group of loyal, life-long girl-friends, the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. All grow up in Louisiana, all have a quirky, over-the top, but always interesting lives. There are dark secrets inspired by the scrapbook that Siddalee receives in the mail from her mother (which inspires the story's flashback narrative), and those darker aspects of the novel are what keeps it from being "just" a sappy beach-read. There is depth here, and some real emotion.

The Characters (and I use a capital because all of them are Characters in the sense of "what a character!") are all sketched somewhat larger than life. While you think sometimes you'd really like to meet them, sometimes you also are quite glad you never have. What I found most interesting about the novel is the sense of reconciliation between generations, the troubled "I am not going to become my mother" issue that many women struggle with, and the sense that our parents were children too-- and sometimes, their lives will irreversibly change our own-- even (and especially) when we don't even know about the events that change them.

I bought this book for several of my friends. It is not really a "hey, let's be like this" book-- but it is, in many ways, a celebration of life, of friendship and loyalty, and of living a life painted with large gestures of the brush (even when that big-ness causes pain). Read it and think about your own ties to the past, both visible and hidden.

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