Reviews for The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder

The average rating for The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder based on 2 reviews is 2 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2009-09-04 00:00:00 Mark Smith What a disappointment!!! I truly wanted to like this book... I read The Ya Ya Sisterhood and Little Altars Everywhere a few years back, and I remember loving them, so when I saw the author's newest book at the library, I grabbed it. As I read the first few chapters, I thought the book moved pretty slowly and was kind of schmaltzy. As I got farther along, I just found that the characters were cliche, and in my mind, many of Calla Lily's and her friends' quotes seemed very "Peggy Hill". It also seemed as though the author was trying to hit on some deep themes, but the novel was sketchy and esoteric and came off like a Lifetime movie. I should have quit while I was ahead, and stopped reading it after the first few chapters, but most of the time I'm obsessive-compulsive about seeing a book through to the end. So I finished it - now I'm pissed off that I wasted my time. I find myself questioning how much I liked Wells' other books. Was I delusional at the time? Was I much less sophisticated about my reading material? Is it just me? I'm half tempted to go back and read the Ya Ya books, just to find out, but then it would be more of my time wasted - so little time, and so many good books that I haven't read.

Review # 2 was written on 2009-07-23 00:00:00 Dena Ladner Warning: Possible spoilers After reading several heavier books this summer, I was ready for a light read, and this book fit that bill fairly well. It's a good story, but I think it could have been a better story without all the Moon Lady nonsense. Like another reviewer said, I was quickly hooked on the characters and had a good "four hankie cry" when M'Dear died, but a lot of the book felt like a first draft. There was a lot of repetition in the first two chapters that seemed unnecessary and perhaps accidental. The dialogue between characters was often weirdly stilted and unnatural. People just don't talk like that and it made me imagine the characters waving scarves in their hands dramatically as they spoke. I was shaken by a scene early in the book where a black child's desire to skate in the white rink leads to violence, but that incident stood alone. As the book spans more than 20 years, I expected the scene to have some later relevance that never showed up. I had been waiting excitedly to read this book and while I found it mostly entertaining, it was disappointing to find so many things wrong with a book by a favorite author.