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jnhamm's review against another edition
funny
lighthearted
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
pattydsf's review against another edition
2.0
Sometimes revisiting a place is not a good idea. As they say, you can't go home again. When I was in high school, I thought that Rita Mae Brown was a wonderful author. Six of One was one of my favorites and I gave away copies to friends. I had also enjoyed Rubyfruit Jungle and more recently I have had fun reading the Sneaky Pie mysteries.
So I had high hopes for Loose Lips. I can't say I am totally disappointed with this book, but I felt like I was slogging through a one note book. The Hunsenmeir sisters have never grown up. Their antics have entertained Runnymeade for years and so they have not had to change. This novel is humorous in parts, but mostly it is too immature for me. Next time Rita Mae Brown revisits Runnymeade, I won't be along for the ride.
So I had high hopes for Loose Lips. I can't say I am totally disappointed with this book, but I felt like I was slogging through a one note book. The Hunsenmeir sisters have never grown up. Their antics have entertained Runnymeade for years and so they have not had to change. This novel is humorous in parts, but mostly it is too immature for me. Next time Rita Mae Brown revisits Runnymeade, I won't be along for the ride.
sbunyan's review against another edition
3.0
I enjoyed the small town gossip, southern manners, and the perspective of WWII. I thought the two sisters were just a bit too quirky and felt that RMB was trying too hard to make them quirky.
readsinbed's review against another edition
1.0
I was really disappointed in this book, as Six of One and Bingo are both among my very favorite books. This felt like a half-hearted attempt at adding to a very successful duo of books with resoundingly terrible results. The writing style was not nearly up to par (sadly, I personally feel that Ms. Brown's writing has headed South of late), and there were glaring inconsistencies in the plot and simple details, such as Nickel's middle name(!?!). Why change such basic and mostly meaningless details after they have been established in earlier works? It made me think that this book was very hastily written and published as an attempt to win back readers who loved Six of One and Bingo along with many of her earlier works (fans such as myself), but (again, like myself) have a hard time with the all too cutesy series she is now "co-authoring" with her cat. It makes me sad... many of Ms. Brown's books had a fairly strong impact on me, despite the fact that she tends to write about the same (albeit differently named) main characters who are clearly not-so-thinly-veiled versions of the author herself. That, I can get past, and even enjoy. The inconsistencies in this book, I cannot. I truly finished this book wondering why she bothered.
pattydsf's review
2.0
Sometimes revisiting a place is not a good idea. As they say, you can't go home again. When I was in high school, I thought that Rita Mae Brown was a wonderful author. Six of One was one of my favorites and I gave away copies to friends. I had also enjoyed Rubyfruit Jungle and more recently I have had fun reading the Sneaky Pie mysteries.
So I had high hopes for Loose Lips. I can't say I am totally disappointed with this book, but I felt like I was slogging through a one note book. The Hunsenmeir sisters have never grown up. Their antics have entertained Runnymeade for years and so they have not had to change. This novel is humorous in parts, but mostly it is too immature for me. Next time Rita Mae Brown revisits Runnymeade, I won't be along for the ride.
So I had high hopes for Loose Lips. I can't say I am totally disappointed with this book, but I felt like I was slogging through a one note book. The Hunsenmeir sisters have never grown up. Their antics have entertained Runnymeade for years and so they have not had to change. This novel is humorous in parts, but mostly it is too immature for me. Next time Rita Mae Brown revisits Runnymeade, I won't be along for the ride.
expendablemudge's review
3.0
The Book Report: Julia Ellen Hunsenmeir and her big sister Louise do WWII and motherhood and heading into middle age, with an excursion into grandmotherhood and infidelity. All of Runnymeade, Maryland-and-Pennsylvania, is agog, when they are not aghast, at the antics of the sisters. This book fills in some *huge* gaps in the storytelling of [Six of One], as I suspect Ms. Brown is out to tell the whole tale and not only the bits and patches from the first book. One side effect of this is that the characters sometimes shift...for example, Minta Mae Dexter was the leader of the Sisters of Gettysburg, where in this book it was Caesura Frothingham, previously known as the leader of the Daughters of the Confederacy. Fannie Jump Creighton, I am happy to report, is still busy seducing the young men of Runnymeade. SOME things must remain sacred. Oh, and Cora gets the surprise of her life in this book...plus we meet Chessy's, Jut's husband, mother...what a complete pill.
Readers of [Six of One] recall how Nickel, the stand-in for Ms. Brown, came to be...well, now we see a piece of her not-easy childhood with a crazy, vibrant, exciting, but utterly self-absorbed Julia Ellen for a momma. Some of the most moving moments in the book involve the mother/daughter mishegas these ladies endured.
My Review: I don't know if I'm unusual in this, but I feel very *proprietary* about characters and books in the series that I come to love. Since I adored the first book in this series, [Six of One], I came to all the others thinking There Is But One Way for things in this world to be. And then Brown, creatrix of the series, shifts things willy-nilly! How dare she! After all, these are *my* books!
Oh wait....
Still and all, I arrived at an explanation that satisfies me: Memories change when a person gets old. I mean, after all, those of us back here in our twenties can't imagine really what it's like to have a half-century of events stored in our brains! (Shut up. It's MY review.) And Brown published this the year she turned sixty, which we all know is somewhat older than God. So of course her elderbrain wandered and led her into little boo-boos. It's not her fault, I decided magnanimously, from my extreme distance in age. (Stop laughing!) And then I got into the swing of things, enjoying mightily the antics and the goins-on of the one-horse burg called Runnymeade. It was lovely to see Celeste again, and to know a little more about Rillma and her jam (figures big in this book)...well, it was good to see the old gang and I hope I can see them again. I suspect one reason Brown is writing the fill-in books is that her mother is now dead. She has to be, doesn't she? But now, after the generations before us have thinned out to few and far between, now's the time to get it down and keep it there. Before the curtain drops on our...I mean HER!...generation too.
If you have a romantic or sentimental bone in you, this series is for you. Order doesn't matter. Pick one up and laugh and cry along with the Humsenmeir sisters, it's a load of fun.
Readers of [Six of One] recall how Nickel, the stand-in for Ms. Brown, came to be...well, now we see a piece of her not-easy childhood with a crazy, vibrant, exciting, but utterly self-absorbed Julia Ellen for a momma. Some of the most moving moments in the book involve the mother/daughter mishegas these ladies endured.
My Review: I don't know if I'm unusual in this, but I feel very *proprietary* about characters and books in the series that I come to love. Since I adored the first book in this series, [Six of One], I came to all the others thinking There Is But One Way for things in this world to be. And then Brown, creatrix of the series, shifts things willy-nilly! How dare she! After all, these are *my* books!
Oh wait....
Still and all, I arrived at an explanation that satisfies me: Memories change when a person gets old. I mean, after all, those of us back here in our twenties can't imagine really what it's like to have a half-century of events stored in our brains! (Shut up. It's MY review.) And Brown published this the year she turned sixty, which we all know is somewhat older than God. So of course her elderbrain wandered and led her into little boo-boos. It's not her fault, I decided magnanimously, from my extreme distance in age. (Stop laughing!) And then I got into the swing of things, enjoying mightily the antics and the goins-on of the one-horse burg called Runnymeade. It was lovely to see Celeste again, and to know a little more about Rillma and her jam (figures big in this book)...well, it was good to see the old gang and I hope I can see them again. I suspect one reason Brown is writing the fill-in books is that her mother is now dead. She has to be, doesn't she? But now, after the generations before us have thinned out to few and far between, now's the time to get it down and keep it there. Before the curtain drops on our...I mean HER!...generation too.
If you have a romantic or sentimental bone in you, this series is for you. Order doesn't matter. Pick one up and laugh and cry along with the Humsenmeir sisters, it's a load of fun.
kat2112's review
2.0
I loved Six of One and Bingo, which feature the same characters. Sadly, Loose Lips marked the beginning of the end for me with the Runnymeade gang.
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