Tag: Published in 1996

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Starlight Book Review – Rebecca Wells’ Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood

The Starry Night Elf
Cover of Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells centered on a light medium green background with Starry Night Elf avatar in lower right hand corner | Cover Image Source: Goodreads

Back in the Day Stellar Reading Challenge – 1990s

Published 1996

Trigger Warnings – abuse/child neglect/ racism/sexism/ substance abuse/ violence

4.2/5 I remember my mom taking me to see Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (2002) when the film hit screens during a summer break from college. Mom also read the book by Rebecca Wells which inspired the movie of the same name. Yet, I probably did not mentally slide Wells’ Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood until I read Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point… Still, I never made my way back to this book until last month when I sought out literature published in the 1990s for the Back in the Day Stellar Reading Challenge (SRC). Click here for details on this SRC. I wanted a book closer to my typical reading but not in a genre I recently read in the latter part of 2022. It pleased me that I located a copy of Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood to read.

“When Siddalee Walker, oldest daughter of Vivi Abbott Walker, Ya-Ya extraordinaire, is interviewed in the New York Times about 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.”

Since growing up in Houston, not two hundred miles from Louisiana, and being close to my mom, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood seemed both familiar and redolent with home and family. I marveled at the bond between Ya-Yas Vivi, Caro, Teensy, and Necie. I appreciated how this book plunged back in time to the 1930s and the beginnings of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood as well as points in Siddalee’s 1993. I found the correspondence between characters dynamic. Some points I set aside the book at some of the abuse, neglect, and racial statements made me uncomfortable. Yet, I must add that I found that Wells related the tale, warts and all, rather than endorsed these thoughts or behaviors.

Quotes come from book flaps/cover and are featured on color blocks.