You know, she’s a good writer, and an easy writer (nice to have an easy to get into book after reading Gaiman who I think is extremely difficult to get into, although very worthwhile once you’ve made that horrendous journey). She does great characters, but in this book, even those were thin, and the story was just never there. I enjoyed this book but it was a throwaway read, demanding nothing of me as a reader and not staying with me.

Good thing I read Devil’s Dream next because I liked it MUCH much better. Maybe I just like her better when she writes about real mountain people. Although I didn’t like Oral History that much, but I read that in the 1980s so who knows what I’d think now. If you are going to read only one Lee Smith, make it Fair and Tender Ladies because it is FANTASTIC!

I thought this was a perfectly decent read, but nothing to write home about. It’s a story of a group of college friends who reunite later in life to mourn the death of one of the friends. They take a cruise down the Mississippi River to scatter the dead friend’s ashes. The story goes back and forth between their time in college and the present day. I started out reading it in paperback (a gift from my sister-in-law), but ended up listening to it as an audio book.

I hope this gets a whole heck of a lot better soon. (It didn’t. It wasn’t sure if it wanted to be “Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood,” or “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter.” The two styles didn’t combine well at all.