From Publishers Weekly
Smith's hardcover debut, Queen Bee of Mimosa Branch, was a charmer, but her newest offering falls flat. Five middle-aged women in Atlanta, former sorority sisters and now the last bastion of "civilized" (read: white and Southern) society, meet monthly to dish up gossip and drink iced tea in their red hats and purple outfits, in honor of Jenny Joseph's poem "Warning" ("When I am an old woman I shall wear purple/ With a red hat which doesn't go and doesn't suit me"). Strictly abiding by a list of 12 time-honored rules labeled the "Sacred Traditions" ("Tradition 5: Mind your own business; Tradition 10: With the exception of alcoholic beverages, all calories shall be in chewable form"), they serve as each others' support network. When Diane's husband is discovered to be cheating on her in a condo she paid for the five decide to turn the tables on him. The plot clips along, but the characters are dislikable enough to sabotage the momentum. The Red Hatters tragic wronged wife Diane; flawlessly attired corporate bride Teeny; promiscuous divorcee SuSu; graying, happily married Linda; and narrator Georgia, a restless wife dreaming of her first love, are little more than cardboard cutouts. Their obsession with proper behavior grates on the nerves, and Georgia is overwhelmingly prissy: "the possibility annoyed the poo out of me." The flashbacks to the women's sorority days are more successful one chapter in which two of the girls, terrified of making a friend miss curfew, drive her stuck-in-reverse car five miles home backwards is a chuckler but nothing makes this disappointing effort stand out from the ranks of Rebecca Wells wannabes.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
While the title of this novel springs from a poem about individuality (Jenny Joseph's "Warning"), its characters, the five Atlanta women of the Red Hat Club, work hard to fit a certain genteel image. The story tries to be part STEEL MAGNOLIAS, part DIVINE SECRETS OF THE YA-YA SISTERHOOD, but fails because of its flat characters, who profess to be something they clearly are not. As the friends unite to help one of their club seek revenge on a cheating husband, their adventures are punctuated by flashbacks to younger days. What has been engaging in other literary efforts is here stale, false, and slow. Anne Gartlan offers an able performance--the best that can be expected from a text that has intelligent women using phrases like "Dadgum it!" While some may find this a harmless diversion, the concept has been done better. L.B.F. © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine--
Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
