Ya-Yas in Bloom (The Ya-Ya Series Book 3)

(#5 in the 2007 book challenge)

I was a big fan of her other two books that told this same story, they remind me of my mom and it's all very pleasant and nostalgic. I was absolutely fine with the fact that this book is going over a lot of the same information (the same way I like to chat with my mom

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even though I have already chatted with her before), but was a little disappointed that this one was a bit glurgier than the others.

Grade: B
Recommended: If you a. enjoyed her other books, and b. don't mind going over the material again.

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This book tells the story of
four women in Thornton, Louisiana, from the day they met in the 1930s as
small children themselves, till they are old. They call themselves the
"Ya-Yas" and have been inseparable for their entire lives. Each of them
is unique and special, but together their personalities

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blend in perfect
harmony. It is ultimately a story of female friendship, love and
security about the Ya-Yas, their children (The Petites Ya-Yas) and
eventually their grandchildren (the Tres Petites). It is a story of
abuse and alcoholism, secrets and mental illness, but throughout it is
told with humor and warmth. The books are not your typical trilogy, in
that they don't flow chronologically, each taking up where the last one
left off. Instead, the basic story is told in the first book and
fleshed out in the other two. The setting is the Louisiana bayou, one
of my favorites, filled with Cajun references and parties, bourbon and
branch water, Catholic school, war and just Life with a capital L.

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Although given the subtitle "a novel," this book is really a collection of short stories about the beloved Ya-Ya sisterhood and their families. We travel (mostly chronologically) from the Ya-Yas first meeting each other as precocious and mischief-making 4-year-olds up until their days as

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grandmothers. Some stories are told in first person; others in third person, and we hear from the point of view of many different characters (although mostly skewed toward the Walker family). Along the way, we meet a host of characters, including the Ya-Yas' own parents and in some cases, their parent's parents. The stories also cover a wide range of topics and arouse a number of emotions from humor to heartbreak. It is really an eye-opener (or perhaps a vivid reminder) to how just a few words from a parent can mean so much to a child. The final story in the collection is perhaps a bit too long and also saccharine, but otherwise I would not change a thing about this delightful book.

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While I am a fan of some of Wells' other books, this does not number among them. it felt forced, perhaps an attempt to satisfy the appetites of Ya-Ya fans out of bits and pieces of deleted material that didn't make it into the final editions of the other books.

I didn't like this nearly as much as the other two. All the characters seemed to have lost their personalities. They weren't fun, spontaneous, faulty, spunky characters anymore. They were cliche, too perfect and movie-esque. The end of the book felt like a Hallmark commercial.

I didn't enjoy this book. The writing is good but the characters had no appeal for me; seemed artificial and mostly insipid. Very little was actually going on. Think about this: an entire chapter was given over to two children crawling under the pews at church and pulling another child's hair. I

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will admit that by the time I reached the end of the book, I was skimming more than I was reading.

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ya-ya's as kids. loved it

I "read" this book on audio CD's and loved it. The narrator, Judith Ivey, did a superb job ... normally I cringe to hear Southern accents rendered by actors, but she did just fine. Perhaps it was her presentation, or the fact that the audio edition I had was abridged, but the negative aspects of

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the book I read about in other reviews were missing in my experience of the book, and it may be the presenter and the pruning made for a better book. The abridged version has a number of stories, but most concern Baylor and the story of the kidnapping and everyone's reaction to it is covered by half the disc time. Verging on sentimental, but coming across more as a blend of tender and strong, funny and compassionate, it is a great audio book and as it relates the story, I think it is the best of the three Ya-Ya books.

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My overall feeling for this book was disappointment. Despite the fact that this was the abridged version to begin with, even this 5-CD set was too long for me. I just wanted it to be done so that I could move on to something else. I'm not sure how to pinpoint why this book failed me so. It may have

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been the fact that it had been so long since I'd read the other Ya-Ya books & I just couldn't remember enough to relate this one to the previous reads. It may have been the fact that this one was written as a series of vignettes in an almost random order, giving this book a disjointed feel. And because of that, I never felt like the book ended up going anywhere. Or maybe I've simply outgrown the Ya-Ya's and have moved on to prefer other types of literature. Whatever the case, this one just didn't do it for me.

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I was SOOOoo disappointed in this book. It lacks any of the power of the earlier books. The Characters are mostly all here, but the book just lacks focus. NOT recommended for anyone. If I could give it ZERO stars, I would.

Boring. Usually this type of book is fun, but I just found the stories/chapters tedious.