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shanhautman's review against another edition
1.0
These essays all center on the author's major privilege and her utter lack of awareness regarding the bubble she resides within. I was hoping that this book would take a more feminist, progressive stance on what it means to be a southern woman today. NOPE.
Reminding us that it is very important to keep the house clean so our husbands can focus on us and not the state of the home? Check.
Tokenistic treatment of gay friends and the gay community at large? Check.
Breezily bragging about her designer shopping habits and misfortunes (Everyone wears the same Burberry trench, y'all! It is so easy to pick up the wrong one at a cocktail party. Good thing I can just go buy another more expensive one!)? Check.
Laughing off her unfounded worries about the consequences of pot use (I'm a square, rich white lady...no one's going to arrest me me!) Check.
The list goes obnoxiously on and on. Vapid, uninteresting, and disappointing.
Reminding us that it is very important to keep the house clean so our husbands can focus on us and not the state of the home? Check.
Tokenistic treatment of gay friends and the gay community at large? Check.
Breezily bragging about her designer shopping habits and misfortunes (Everyone wears the same Burberry trench, y'all! It is so easy to pick up the wrong one at a cocktail party. Good thing I can just go buy another more expensive one!)? Check.
Laughing off her unfounded worries about the consequences of pot use (I'm a square, rich white lady...no one's going to arrest me me!) Check.
The list goes obnoxiously on and on. Vapid, uninteresting, and disappointing.
bngambill's review against another edition
5.0
Such a funny book and hits close to home as a southerner
pam2375's review against another edition
2.0
Let me start by saying that I am not from the south. I am smack dab in the middle of the US.
This was OK, not great and quite frankly I did not think that it was particularly funny. There were a few chuckles, but most of the time, I was just searching/hoping for those laugh out loud moments.
Many thanks to Netgalley and Double Day Books for this advanced readers copy.
This was OK, not great and quite frankly I did not think that it was particularly funny. There were a few chuckles, but most of the time, I was just searching/hoping for those laugh out loud moments.
Many thanks to Netgalley and Double Day Books for this advanced readers copy.
whimsicaljune's review against another edition
1.0
Helen Ellis’ humor is not my cup of tea. Bless her heart. This is a collection of short stories, and for me, the story telling fell flat. Honestly it was like listening to that friend of a friend that thinks she’s hilarious and just will not shut up.
Being from the south, I was hoping for more stories with southernisms. It was more like that essay you wrote in 7th grade where you had to write on a specific thing, but really didn’t know that much about it, so you used a bunch of filler words and hoped no one noticed.
Being from the south, I was hoping for more stories with southernisms. It was more like that essay you wrote in 7th grade where you had to write on a specific thing, but really didn’t know that much about it, so you used a bunch of filler words and hoped no one noticed.
kellnels55's review against another edition
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
fast-paced
3.25
labunnywtf's review against another edition
1.0
Received via Netgalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.
I love good southern humor. We bless hearts and sip sweet tea and smile sweetly as we mention that your outfit is so daring, we could never pull that off.
This is not good southern humor.
This doesn't even come close to good southern humor.
I believe Helen Ellis is probably a fantastic oral story teller. When you tell a funny story in person, you get to embellish, make hand gestures, enunciate different words. The presentation of a funny story is far more important than the story itself.
In person, maybe the story of Helen accidentally mistaking someone else's $800 coat for her own $800 coat is hysterical. But there's no umph to this story. She calls two people, confirms it's not their coat, then she and her husband go to a store to buy a $1200 coat to make her feel better about her belief that the coat she has is not her own.
This story is a lot of things, but funny isn't one of them.
Same for the story of a friend's husband's tale of a three-way he witnessed. That sounds like an amazing set up, but too much time is spent dissecting the husband's story telling method, and the wife's response to hearing the same story repeatedly.
That is not humor. It's barely story telling in itself.
The only story I enjoyed was Serious Women, wherein Helen sits in the courtroom while her friend prosecutes a woman who murdered a former high school classmate and cut her baby out, pretending it was hers.
There was no humor in this story. There wasn't supposed to be. And the story telling itself wasn't particularly good. But I kept thinking, "Damn, did someone write a book about this? Because I would read it."
Then I set this book down and started googling the news story.
This is not a good book. There's no Southern Lady Code word for that. It's just bad.
I love good southern humor. We bless hearts and sip sweet tea and smile sweetly as we mention that your outfit is so daring, we could never pull that off.
This is not good southern humor.
This doesn't even come close to good southern humor.
I believe Helen Ellis is probably a fantastic oral story teller. When you tell a funny story in person, you get to embellish, make hand gestures, enunciate different words. The presentation of a funny story is far more important than the story itself.
In person, maybe the story of Helen accidentally mistaking someone else's $800 coat for her own $800 coat is hysterical. But there's no umph to this story. She calls two people, confirms it's not their coat, then she and her husband go to a store to buy a $1200 coat to make her feel better about her belief that the coat she has is not her own.
This story is a lot of things, but funny isn't one of them.
Same for the story of a friend's husband's tale of a three-way he witnessed. That sounds like an amazing set up, but too much time is spent dissecting the husband's story telling method, and the wife's response to hearing the same story repeatedly.
That is not humor. It's barely story telling in itself.
The only story I enjoyed was Serious Women, wherein Helen sits in the courtroom while her friend prosecutes a woman who murdered a former high school classmate and cut her baby out, pretending it was hers.
There was no humor in this story. There wasn't supposed to be. And the story telling itself wasn't particularly good. But I kept thinking, "Damn, did someone write a book about this? Because I would read it."
Then I set this book down and started googling the news story.
This is not a good book. There's no Southern Lady Code word for that. It's just bad.