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Summary
Summary
For readers everywhere who are ga-ga for the Ya-Yas and clamoring for more and for those who are lucky enough to be discovering the Ya-Yas for the first time, comes a new book about the incomparable Sisterhood, bursting with life and funnier than ever....
An emotionally charged addition to Rebecca Wells' award-winning bestseller Little Altars Everywhere and #1 New York Times bestseller Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, YA-YAS IN BLOOM reveals the roots of the Ya-Yas' friendship in the 1930s and roars with all the raw power of Vivi Abbott Walker's 1962 T-Bird through sixty years of marriage, child-raising, and hair-raising family secrets.
When four-year-old Teensy Whitman prisses one time too many and stuffs a big old pecan up her nose, she sets off the chain of events that lead Vivi, Teensy, Caro, and Necie to become true sister-friends. Told in alternating voices of Vivi and the Petite Ya-Yas, Siddalee and Baylor Walker, as well as other denizens of Thornton, Louisiana, YA-YAS IN BLOOM show us the Ya-Yas in love and at war with convention. Through crises of faith and hilarious lapses of parenting skills, brushes with alcoholism and glimpses of the dark reality of racial bigotry, the Ya-Ya values of unconditional loyalty, high style, and Cajun sass shine through. Necies wise credo, "Just think pretty pink and blue thoughts," helps too...
But in the Ya-Yas' inimitable way, these four remarkable women also teach their children about the Mysteries: the wonder of snow in the deep South, the possibility that humans are made of stars, and the belief that miracles do happen. And they need a miracle when old grudges and wounded psyches lead to a heartbreaking crime...and the dynamic web of sisterhood is the only safety net strong enough to hold families together and endure.
After two bestsellers and a blockbuster movie, the Ya-Yas have become part of American culture -- icons for the power of women's friendship. YA-YAS IN BLOOM continues the saga, giving us more Ya-Ya lore, spun out in the rich patois of the Louisiana bayou country and brim full of the Ya-Ya message to embrace life and each other with joy.
Author Notes
Rebecca Wells is an American playwright and author. She is best known for her Ya-Ya series of novels.
Well's novel, The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder, made the New York Times Bestseller list in 2016.
Wells was born in Central Louisiana and grew up on a working plantation where her family lived since 1795. She currently lives on an island near Seattle.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
The Ya-Ya sisters shimmy on and off stage in this disjointed follow-up to Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, Wells's bestselling novel about the singular friendship and escapades of four larger-than-life Southern women. The author is off to a good start with the tale of how Vivi, Teensy, Caro and Necie met as little girls in 1930, their spunk and liveliness a harbinger of things to come. But the focus on the Ya-Yas' early years soon wavers and the novel is all over the map-here a few tales about the grown-up Ya-Yas, like Vivi's run-in with her son's first-grade teacher, a pompous nun; there a story about Vivi's eldest daughter, Sidda, one of the so-called "Petites Ya-Yas," and her directorial debut at age eight at a Valentine's Day party. A chapter appears out of nowhere from the viewpoint of Myrtis Spevey, a contemporary of the original Ya-Yas, who is so excessively jealous and resentful of the friends that she comes off as a cartoon character. After a vexing 30-year leap, Myrtis's creepy, emotionally ill daughter, Edythe, takes over the narrative, kidnapping one of the Ya-Yas' grandchildren. What begins as a collection of haphazard but entertaining snippets from the Ya-Yas' lives suddenly bumps up against a sober story about a missing child and the lengths to which parents will go to protect their young. Readers may lose patience as even the loose family-album format fails to hold up, but Wells still charms when she focuses on the redemptive power of family love and the special bond that comes from genuine, long-lived friendship. Agent, Kim Witherspoon. (One-day laydown Mar. 29) Forecast: Flaws aside, this has a chance at #1, though it may not stick at the top of the lists as long as Divine Secrets. Major ad/promo. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
Ya-Ya sisters, rejoice: your long wait for the sequel to Wells' divine best-seller, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood 0 (1996), is over. Vivi, Teensy, Necie, and Caro, those spirited Ya-Ya sisters, are back with even more raucous tales of their lifelong friendship. Bursting with details of the sisterhood's origins, the sequel also introduces the next generation, aka the Petites Ya-Yas, and even their offspring's offspring, the Tres Petites Ya-Yas. Every bit as joyful as the original, Ya-Yas in Bloom0 exposes the irrepressible Ya-Yas' formidable impact on their staid Louisiana bayou town of Thornton. From the beginning, the Ya-Yas' earthy blend of Cajun mysticism and Catholic catechism put them at odds with the town's more conservative citizens, a fact they found infinitely more amusing than annoying. But when old wrongs come home to haunt the sisterhood, the next generations of Ya-Yas are threatened in profound and frightening ways. Armed with their irreverent philosophy, infectious humor, and implacable loyalty, the sisterhood proves that true friendship will always prevail. And just as it does among the best of friends, the conversation in Wells' second Ya-Ya saga picks right up where the first left off, without missing a beat. Uplifting, uproarious, saucy and smart. --Carol Haggas Copyright 2005 Booklist
Kirkus Review
More helpings of southern-fried sisterhood. Actually, in this third set of snapshots from the lives of four Louisiana friends (Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, 1997, etc.), the men get the final epiphanies. But since these consist of politically correct nostrums like "masculine love . . . is not about power. It is not about judging. It is about a quiet calm, a quiet love," it's clear that girls still rule. For those who have been panting to know how the Ya-Yas first got together, Wells takes us back to 1930, when Teensy Whitman shoves a pecan up her nose and, rushed to the doctor's office where Viviane Abbott sits with an earache, intoxicates Vivi with "a magical wink." Bohemian Caro and good-girl Necie round out the quartet before the year is up, and the narrative then bounces around to show them as unconventional young mothers during the 1960s and cool grannies in 1994. That's the year when Edythe Spevey, the mentally disturbed daughter of a jealous farm girl who always hated the wealthy, flamboyant Ya-Yas, snatches Necie's three-year-old granddaughter, Rosalyn, from a video store. This scary development assorts very oddly with earlier feel-good episodes that show the Ya-Yas facing down such all-too-easy targets as Necie's narrow-minded husband George (he doesn't like the Beatles!) and a censorious nun (she's shocked when Vivi's six-year-old son brings in his mother's garter belt for Show and Tell!). Not even a kidnapping can bring real depth to the kind of characters who call their kids "the Petites Ya-Yas" and their grandchildren "the Très Petites." Fortunately, since Wells inclines to southern cutesiness rather than southern gothic, little Rosalyn is rescued in short order--and in plenty of time for the annual Ya-Ya Christmas party. Wells closes with a chaotic pageant that's meant to be adorable and the stunning revelation that Judge George Ogden is actually not such a bad guy. Another divine jacket image will undoubtedly move books off the shelves, but this is pretty thin stuff for all but the most fanatical Ya-Ya devotees. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
Fans of The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood will find Wells's follow-up a major disappointment, lacking all the sparkle and insight into mother/daughter relationships that marked the introduction of characters Sidda, ViVi, Teensy, Necie, and Caro. This book is a collection of turgid vignettes highlighting moments in the lives of the Ya-Yas, told primarily from the point of view of Sidda and her mother, ViVi. Leaping randomly from the 1960s to the 1990s, these include such events as how ViVi met her three best friends, Sidda's first experience directing a Valentine's Day performance of the Ya-Yas, the first appearance of snow in their hometown of Thornton, LA, the Beatles' appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, and other random events. The dialog is leaden, the stories not particularly interesting. Of course, given Wells's well-earned popularity for her earlier titles and the aggressive marketing campaign that will surround this book, public libraries will get requests but should consider purchase only to meet demand. [See Prepub, LJ 12/04.]-Nancy Pearl, formerly with Washington Ctr. for the Book, Seattle (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Excerpts
Ya-Yas in Bloom A Novel Chapter One A Little Love Gift Vivi, January 1994 My name is Viviane Abbott Walker. Age sixty-eight, but I can pass for forty-nine. And I do. I altered my driver's license and kept that gorgeous picture of me when my hair was still thick and I looked like Jessica Lange, and glued it onto every new license I've had since 1975. And not one officer has said a word to me about it. I like to think I am Queen of the Ya-Yas, the sisterhood I've been part of since I was four. But the fact is that all of us are queens. The Ya-Yas are not a monarchy. We are a Ya-Ya-cracy. Caro, who is still more alive than anyone I know, even though she is yoked to an oxygen tank most of the time because of her emphysema. Teensy, who is probably the most sophisticated of us, although she doesn't know it, and still cute as a bug. I never know when she'll be home in Thornton -- right smack in the heart of Louisiana, where we were all raised -- or in Paris or Istanbul. And Necie, our dear, kind Necie, who is still Madame Chairwoman of every charity in the parish, if not the state. As Ya-Yas, we've grown up, raised our kids -- the Petites Ya-Yas -- and welcomed our grandchildren, the Très Petites, into this sweet, crazy world. We've helped one another stay glued together through most any life event you can imagine. Except we haven't buried our husbands yet. Well, Caro tried to bury Blaine when she found out he was gay, but decided he and his boyfriend were too much fun and Blaine too good a cook to kill him. It was the Ya-Yas who brought my oldest child, Sidda, and I back together when we were on the verge of an ugly mother-daughter divorce. They would not stand by and watch it happen, bless their crazy wild hearts. Sidda said it was the three of them and that old scrapbook of mine that I so grandly titled "Divine Secrets" when I was nothing but a kid that helped her understand me. Helped her believe I loved her -- even though I was what you might call an "uneven" mother. Sidda has always been melodramatic. Sidda said she especially loved the snapshots. Snapshots are just snapshots as far as I am concerned. Sidda analyzes everything too much, if you ask me. But this morning, I'm the one who wants to study a photograph. And, of all things, it's one with my mother in it. This morning I woke from the most vivid memory. It was not so much a dream as a completely clear picture of my mother, surrounded by flowers. It triggered an image that I just knew I had a photograph of. But I had to have my coffee before beginning the search. Photos in this house are not what you would call organized. You have to be an archaeologist to even form a search team. I've always been too busy living to sit around for hours and arrange the photos and snapshots into proper family albums. My life is so full. I might be a card-carrying member of AARP, but I am not retired. Or retiring, for that matter! Hah! I am busy, busy, busy. Work out at the club every single weekday. Bourrée with the Ya-Yas. Cruises with Shep. And spending time in that garden of his. He's out there so much that in order to see him, I have -- for the first time in my life -- put on a pair of deerskin gloves and done a very small amount of digging and weeding. He says it will grow on me. I say, What's wrong with being a garden amateur? Mass every Saturday afternoon. Confession twice a month. Reading everything I can get my hands on (except science fiction, too much like my bad dreams). Playing tennis with Teensy and Chick. I am fit as hell. My constitution is amazing. My liver is in fine shape, to the everlasting shock of my doctors. The most trouble I have is a little arthritis in my hands. I'm going to be like one of those women they find in China who live to be one hundred and forty after smoking and drinking all their lives. Oh, there is pain in my life, but it is harder to put a name to it. Sometimes I lie in bed and wonder if there was a typhoid booster or dental checkup that I forgot to give Sidda, Little Shep,Lulu, or Baylor. Something I missed and should have done. Sometimes I lie in bed and wish I had just asked the kids what would have made them feel more loved. But I do not dwell, thank you very much. I follow Necie's words of wisdom: "Just think pretty pink and blue thoughts." After one strong cup of Dark Roast Community Coffee, I began scrounging through the hutch drawers where I keep most of our family snapshots. I had to pray to Saint Anthony, Patron Saint of Lost Objects, and he finally helped me find the image I wanted. It was stashed in the back of one of the hutch drawers, slightly wrinkled, but there all the same. One of the things I love about Catholicism is that there is a saint for everything. If Sidda can't find a saint for something, that girl just makes one up. Even has one she calls Saint Madge of Menstruation. I don't consider that blasphemous, although there was a time when I would have. Now I just call it creative ... Ya-Yas in Bloom A Novel . Copyright © by Rebecca Wells. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold. Excerpted from Ya-Yas in Bloom: A Novel by Rebecca Wells All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
