Customer Reviews

Along Came Mary

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Although about half of the events in this book took place at the flower farm on the central California coast, much of it followed the travels of Mary Madigan and "Rotten Rick" as they wound their way west from Oklahoma to the coast. The reader knows that a connection will be made but not exactly how.

I was glad to revisit the women of Bad Girl Creek and catch up on their lives. Poor Phoebe is dealing (and not very well) with a personal disaster while Beryl has moved to Alaska with Earl.

Mapson must have great relationships with some really great girlfriends because she has wonderful insight into women's friendships and how women provide unquestioned support for each other.

I love reading and getting lost in this author's stories. As one reviewer said, "you don't just read her books, you take up residence in them." This is so true....... I always feel like I am there, participating in the lives of the well-developed characters, feeling their joy and their pain.

A great read that I hated to finish!

In Along Came Mary, Mapson brings us back once again to the girls of Bad Girl Creek and their delightful flower farm. The girls are all back, and the sense of sisterhood that Mapson captured in Bad Girl Creek is just as strong. The girls will go through some more ups and downs, but their friendships will help them prevail.

Along Came Mary also introduces us to two new characters Mary Madigan & Rotten Rick. The only disappointment I felt while reading Along Came Mary was that the majority of the book seemed to focus on Maddy & Rick, instead of the girls at the flower farm. I enjoyed Bad Girl Creek a little more for this reason, as I loved the focus of Nance, Phoebe, Ness & Beryl that Bad Girl Creek had. Despite this, Mapson still maintains her gift for writing, and has you feeling all of the joys and pains that her characters go through, as if they were actually happening to you or your closest friend. I can't wait for the next book, so I can return to these women who have become friends~

I am a huge Mapson fan and was looking forward to her new book. What ended up happening with this one, like all the others, was that I couldn't put it down until I finished. The bad girls are back and better than ever, and surprisingly, "Rotten Rick" is also back! The setting, the problems (and resolutions) these women have, and the story of Rick and Maddy was just so well-written, it felt real to me. What I found the most interesting was the points of view it was written from--in "Bad Girl Creek," it alternated between the points of view of all the women; in this book, it took a different twist and alternated between Phoebe, Beryl, Rick, and Maddy. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who wants to read about brave, feisty women and one man who eventually shows that he's not rotten. Definite two-plus thumbs up!

You don't read a Jo-Ann Mapson novel. You take up residence in it, as if it were the comfortable home of a good friend. When it ends, dumping you rudely into reality, you want to move back in and claim squatter's rights. This was never more true than with Bad Girl Creek, the first book in this trilogy, so now I'm thrilled (and relieved) to find that you really can go home again. The Bad Girls are all back, and there's an intriguing addition--Maddy, a honky tonk angel who's gritty, heart-breaking and real. She's from Oklahoma and her life becomes entwined with the flower farm gang of four in a simple twist of fate that only Mapson could dream up and pull off. One of my favorite things about her writing, as in all her previous books, is the way she weaves the separate strands of her characters' lives together with deliciously fascinating details on various subjects, like flowers and music, pulling all the threads into a tapestry world so compelling and involving you want to wrap it around yourself and settle in for the duration.

What a novel! An exhilarating read about friendship, love and the way paths intersect, even far from the flower farm. All the glorious women from "Bad Girl Creek" are back, Mary, Phoebe, Beryl, Nance and Ness--old friends with new secrets--and we also have the delicious Rotten Rick. What is so wonderful here is the way Mapson understands, appreciates, and shows us female friendships, how she knows a heart can be torn to shreds, but it can also heal. Written in prose as crystalline as a mountain stream, Mapson breaks your heart, makes you laugh, and she does it brilliantly. I can't wait for the next book in the trilogy.

I just wrote a review for another of Joann's books called A Bad Girl Creek Novel, this Book and Good-bye Earl are a set of 3 books that go hand in hand with one another. You won't go wrong with purchasing these books, this set is one that should definately be made into a movie.

This book was one of the best I've read so far. While "Bad Girl Creek" wasnt one of my favorites, this little gem sure was. I couldn't put it down, I was so intrigued by it...especially Phoebe and Sally. Can't wait to read "Goodbye Earl."

Having read wilder Sisters, Bad Girl Creek and Now Along Came Mary I'm waiting not so patiently for Good Bye Earl! My favorite so far as been Bad Girl simply becuase I feel like I "Know" the characters...to me they are so typical of they way good friends see eachother, need eachother...and just know eachother. Mary was great with the added characters and dogs! Maybe someone will give me Earl for my birthday!!!

girlfriend to girlfriend, I had a great time with this book.

Fans of "Bad Girl Creek", be forewarned - you won't spend much quality time with the Girls (Phoebe, Ness, Beryl and Nance) here. Mapson's quirky, multi-dimensional characters from her previous novel are little more than minor supporting players in "Along Came Mary". Touted as a sequel, it's mainly the back story of Rotten Rick, who was briefly mentioned in BGC as Nance's loathsome ex, and Mary Madigan, a talented but underacheiving drifter mourning the loss of her twin sister in the Oklahoma City bombing several years earlier. The two meet after Rick loses his dead end job at a music magazine and Mary Madigan (Maddy) ditches her loser boyfriend. They team up as road trip partners, as Rick pursues a career as a journalist, and Maddy tries to make a living singing on the open mike bar circuit, and form an odd relationship as lovers, but not quite friends. Exploring the dynamics of this unlikely pairing might have made for a good story if either Rick or Maddy were interesting or likeable characters. However, Rick was dull and Maddy was irritating (I was ready to throw the book across the room the next time she said the word "feck") and I never grew to like either one of them enough to care about what became of their relationship.

In sharp contrast to the Rick/Maddy storyline were the chapters (sadly, very few) written from original Bad Girl Phoebe's point of view. My heart broke for Phoebe's loss of her first and only love, Juan. Her grief and her anger towards their unborn child were painfully realistic, but tempered by the love of the other Bad Girls as they rallied around to support her. It is in these few chapters, and a few journal entries written by Beryl, that we glimpse the spirit of the original book. However, the lack of any real focus on the other Girls (a subplot about about Nance's eating disorder is reduced to a few pages here and there, and there is virtually nothing of Ness) keeps this from being a true follow up to their story.

Maddy and Rick are briefly brought together with the Girls through a chance meeting with Beryl. The unlikely friendship that sparks between them leads to Beryl urging Maddy to head out to Bad Girl Creek. Aha, one thinks, so Maddy will become the new Bad Girl. Nope! The new roommate hinted at in BGC doesn't appear until the very end. She, like the original four, promises to be a fascinating, multi-layered character - unfortunately, we don't see much of her before the focus jumps back to the tired Rick and Maddy saga.

The chapters focusing on Phoebe give us a tantalizing hint of what a real sequel to BGC could have been, and earns the book the two stars of my rating. Stars are lost by the sheer disappointment caused by the near abandonment of my beloved Girls in favor of the boring Rick and Maddy. Here's hoping the third installment, "Goodbye Earl", will return to true Bad Girl form.