Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells

I took this one with me when my mom and I went on a road trip holiday together. It was up against amazing competition. It was also up against really high expectations - never a good thing for a book.

I finished it over a week ago and have since spent a fair amount of time wondering about the review I gave it on Goodreads. I think I was particularly harsh. I didn't have one good thing to say about it. While I don't think that the book was dreadful (I did actually find it a quick read, which is a good sign that I enjoyed the reading experience), I don't really want to change my initial response, because it was honest and filled with emotion. A week later, my feelings have dimmed. But I still stand by my comments I made.

I can't say that I liked any of the characters - but that does not mean that the book was bad - at least from that perspective alone. The mother, Vivi, was frustrating. I found her too self-obsessed, narcissistic, weak and never made a single attempt to solve the issues in her life. She gave up after the first big hurdle and settled, and then drank because she was miserable. Surprise! That didn't solve anything. The daughter's character was better, even though she too came across as being weak. There were so many opportunities for her to stand up to her mother, to stand up for herself, but instead she kept slinking away to feel unloved and sorry for herself. Yes, yes. That was probably the point. A difficult parent is not the same thing as having someone who is difficult, say, at work. The responses and reactions to situations and each other are probably so built in they could be genetic. And I am not even going to say anything about the men in this, because they were either non-existent or prince charming. As I said, though, unlikable characters are not enough for me to dislike a book. Sometimes the most unlikable characters make a book.

Having said that though, the chapters about the Vivi and the Ya-Yas were far more entertaining to read. I was curious to know what happened - what made the mother the way she was. I was disappointed with the outcome though. The feeling in the story about the mother is that she is strong - but she was not. The chapters with the daughter, Siddalee, I particularly didn't enjoy. I felt that some of the scenes were trying to create a magical connection between her and her mother and failed. I also got tired of reading about her reading. (It isn't a spectator sport.) I was also frustrated with the scenes with her fiance. I could not really see the point.

I can't really claim I got much out of the story. The blurb says it is about forgiveness being more important than understanding. Really? I did not pick that message out. Not if the characters remained true to the people that had been created throughout the book.

I gave this 3 stars. It was for the most part an 'ok' read. It had some good parts, and it really did keep the pages turning. But it was not spectacular and in many ways, felt cliched.

This was the 17th book I have read for the 2015 TBR Pile Reading challenge. Yay! I am making progress (or I would be if I could stop buying books!)