Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg

Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg-395 pages

⭐✩✫✫✫

This is our next book for the Book to Movie Club chosen by our group. I have to be honest. I didn't like it very much. I finished it, of course, but it has borderline racist overtones. The African-American characters are very "stereotypical." Also, the timeline throughout the book is scattered and off. The stories are all over the place and it doesn't seem for most of the book to be a cohesive, coherent story. It reads mostly like a lonely old woman babbling to a younger woman at a nursing home about the "good old days." Mrs. Threadgoode (the old woman) and Evelyn Couch do strike up a friendship, but I just didn't get emotionally invested in the characters. Lastly, it seems like a creative writing class project and not a published novel. It seems the author was going for a folksy feel, but it didn't work for me. Overall, I would not recommend this book. However, maybe this will be a rare occasion when the movie is better than the book (it definitely was!). 

It's Your Party, Die If You Want To by Vickie Fee

It's Your Party, Die If You Want To by Vickie Fee
352 pages

This cozy mystery set in the South is full of great characters and maintains an upbeat rhythm throughout.  It is the second Liv and Di in Dixie Mystery, but reads just as well as a stand-alone.

Main character "Liv" has a party planning business and (of course) a great mind for solving crimes.  When a local socialite who has a reputation for having affairs with married men is poisoned during a women's retreat, there are more than the usual suspects.  Of course many believe the murderess is the visiting television celebrity who talks to ghosts.

Fee's writing is noticeably improved from her first book.  If you like cozies this is a good one.

On a personal note, I met the author in Michigan's U.P., and we bonded over books and being transplants to Yooperland.  She is a real Southern lady.

Ruth’s Journey: the Authorized Novel of Mammy from Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind

Ruth’s Journey: the Authorized Novel of Mammy from Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind

By Donald McCaig

374 pages

Any admirer of Gone with the Wind, will greatly enjoy this fictional account of Scarlett O’Hara Mammy Ruth’s life, which began in St. Domingue.  As a young adult, Ruth experiences love and loss along with some unexpected turns. The story leads to Scarlett O’Hara and her mischief as a child and teenager.   

Go Set A Watchman by Harper Lee

Go Set A Watchman by Harper Lee, 278 pages

I loved this book!!  I tried not to prejudge this book by listening to all the spoilers.  I knew when I heard the manuscript was found that I would want to buy this book.  I am a big fan of To Kill A Mockingbird and was afraid this book would not live up to all the hype.  Although Go Set A Watchman may not be the classic as was To Kill A Mockingbird, it deserves the attention.  I was not disappointed in the story or the characters.  This book focuses on Jean Louise (Scout) and Atticus Finch and how they have been influenced by situations in the south at the very early beginnings of the civil rights movement. Their relationship is just as touching now as it was back when Scout was a child.  I really appreciated how Jean Louise had grown into an intelligent young woman. The flashbacks in the book remind us why we all loved To Kill A Mockingbird.