day 3 of the 30 day book challenge

Day 03. Your favorite series

Ya-Ya!

We all dreamed about them–friends made before school that become our adult support system.The Ya-Ya trilogy ("Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood," "Little Alters Everywhere" (its prequel), "Ya-Yas in Bloom") takes us through two generations of amazing friendships that Rebecca Wells makes you long for an almost feel that you have with her characters.

Again, let's look at Powell's synopsis of book one:

When Siddalee Walker, oldest daughter of Vivi Abbott Walker, Ya-Ya extraordinaire, is interviewed in the New York Time sabout a hit play she's directed, her mother gets described as a "tap-dancing child abuser." Enraged, Vivi disowns Sidda. Devastated, Sidda begs forgiveness, and postpones her upcoming wedding. All looks bleak until the Ya-Yas step in and convince Vivi to send Sidda a scrapbook of their girlhood mementos, called "Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood." As Sidda struggles to analyze her mother, she comes face to face with the tangled beauty of imperfect love, and the fact that forgiveness, more than understanding, is often what the heart longs for.

Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood may call to mind Prince of Tides in its unearthing of family darkness; in its unforgettable heroines and irrepressible humor and female loyalty, it echoes Fannie Flagg's Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe.

These books read like summer, and you leave them feeling like you belong to the South–on a lakeside stretch of sand, baking in iodine & Bloody Mary. The pages turn themselves and before you know it, you've whipped through the series. You leave them with the same feeling you have leaving your high school friends to go to college. They've become a part of you–through their family secrets, adventures & misdeeds–and you're afraid to leave them behind.

There are some stories that make me long for my own family as well–more to come on the list. This series is certainly one of them. My family is full of loud & excitable characters. We're ready for a good story & the messy adventures that come with it. My family also is filled with women who love to read. Many of my favorite books are the favorites of my aunts, grandma and mom. Ya-Yas is one of these books for us, perhaps because there was something in the stories that felt like home–the large groups of people, the running in yards, the strength of the women.

I've only read the series once, & I look forward to reading it again. I also hope that Joe will read it, because this series has an unfortunately low number of male readers. While the characters & their adventures are certainly speaking to the women of the twentieth century, Wells' storytelling is something both sexes can appreciate.