Customer Reviews

Beulah Land

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

 

 

The book is an interesting read. While it definitely has elements of the old South, it is first and foremost a soap opera. The historical setting provides the backdrop for the story of the wealthy, prestigious Kendrick family and their many loves, mistakes, heartbreaks, and joys. The only similarities this book has with Gone with the Wind are the historical setting and the main protagonist's grit to survive during the upheaval of the Civil War. However, the focus of Gone with the Wind is on survival while the focus of Beulah Land is more on relationships between characters. The time jumps in Beulah Land often were frustrating as I wanted to read how the Kendricks survived rather than have it explained to me later in the book. However, it is an enjoyable read as you do want to stick with the book to see what will happen next with the characters.

I loved this book about the Kendall's right before and during the Civil War. This book is a sweeping saga that keeps you up at night and alert during the day!! Read this book if you love books about the southern familes during the Civil War. Some parts are graphic and heart wrenching but worth the read!!!

This was the first time that I've read a book by Lonnie Coleman. I picked it up because it was a story about the southern states and slavery before the war between the states. I liked the book. The characters were believable and the story line was good. It was fun to read.

The series of Beulah Land books are better than gone
with the wind. They are more realistic and historical.
I highly recommend these books by Lonnie Coleman!

I first read this book a few years ago, and recently started reading it again. Out of all the antebellum novels I have on my bookshelf, this is probably the best one next to Gone With the Wind.

This is the story of the Kendricks and their plantation, Beulah Land. It traces three generations of the family, seeming to focus on the women, Deborah, the matriarch of the family, her daughter, Selma, and daughter in law, Sarah, polar opposites of each other, and Rachel, Sarah's daughter. The Kendricks's friends and neighbors, the Davises, as well as Roscoe Elk, a free mulatto, and his family, figure prominently in the story of the family's efforts to live in pre-war Georgia.

I enjoyed the "realness" of the story and the way it did not feel dated or tabloidish. The characters felt very real, from Sarah, who dreams of love, but has to deal with the realities of her world, to Edna, the tough matriarch of the Davis clan. Their world is not soft and easy--people die violently, children are rejected by their parents, they have to deal with hatred and jealousy--but the family survives. The rich detail of the story makes you feel like you are walking the plantation with the characters, riding through the woods with them, enjoying the wonderful food.

A warning: there is lots of sex in this book, some of it quite graphic and disturbing. If that bothers you, this is not the book for you, since some of it sets up further plot developments and can not be skipped. But the book is enjoyable on the whole and well worth a try. The story reads quickly, but is so engrossing you don't want it to end--a great thing that there are 2 other books in the series.

I love old-fashioned historical novels and shomehow I missed this one, the first of of a trilogy set on a plantation prior to the civil war and written in the 1950s. It is a family saga with wonderful characters and complex relationships. The sights and smells and sounds of the old south are vivid, and there are some wonderfully poignant moments of connection between characters that are beautiful. I read the whole trilogy, and it's terrific.

I'm giving this one 3.5 stars, mostly because of all the hype on the cover that this was a Southern-plantation saga on par with Gone With the Wind. (The Chicago Tribune raved that this was "Gone with the Wind....with sex!" ha)

It is indeed a saga about the Georgia plantation Beulah Land and it's owners and slaves. The story begins in the early 1800s and we're introduced to the first generation at Beulah Land. There are, of course a myriad of family members, slaves, and folks from the adjoining plantations.

The years roll by and the book covers all the way to 1861, so around three generations worth of marriage, betrayal, children, etc, all things saga-related.

I'm only able to give it 3.5 stars because it just couldn't sustain my interest all that much. Yes, it's more explicit than Gone With the Wind, but I honestly could have done without the sex....it just was written icky. There didn't seem to be one single healthy relationship amongst the lot of them. You'd think that with at least 30 characters, one or two of them might have a healthy, happy marriage? And speaking of sex, I'm not going to write a spoiler, but there is one particularly very nasty part (and I am super liberal when it comes to sex in books) that made me put the book down for a couple of hours. Ewwww. And can I just complain that every single reference, and there were dozens of them throughout the book, to a man's genitals used the word "dick"? How inventive.

I would have eventually tossed the book aside were it not for the occasional moments of sheer brilliant writing. As is normal for plantation-style sagas, there's a lot more telling than showing...and that's okay with me because that's where some of the best writing was.

Here's an example:

"Leon was too young to accept the idea of growing old, and he was too old to hope that life held anything new and wonderful for him in the future."

I mean, how great (and true) is that? There are scores of lovely gems like that scattered throughout, but it just wasn't enough to rescue the book for me.

This is the first of a trilogy by this author, but I doubt I'll be reading the remaining two.

This story covers about 60 years (1800-1861) through the generations of the black slaves and white masters of the plantation Beulah Land. The story itself was interesting, but the writing was clunky in some parts and could have been polished/edited better.

The story goes in several installments, named after the time they were set in (1800, 1853, 1828, etc) and many characters get voices in the story - white and black people, along with mixed-breeds like Roman. If the author had been more careful with some parts and writing, this story could have been truly memorable. Nonetheless, it was still a fairly enjoyable read.

Some may refer to this book as an inflation of Gone with the Wind, but it is my opnion, that these books are two totally different reads. The only paralell that I can sumise, is that both stories take place in the South.

Margaret Mitchell, was (although not considered by her contemporaires in her youth) a Lady, and being such, she wrote as one. I love the tale of Scarlett and Rhett. It is a true classic.

This book is not in any way, an "inflation" of Margaret Mitchell's story. This book stands proudly on its own two feet.

Seasoned with contemptable characters, sex (and while the situations are quite explicit), and situations, I proudly rate this book with a four star rating.

In reading this book, do not compare it to Gone with the Wind. Read it as a totally different book, with fresh characters. It is well written, and the chapters are quite short (I like this because you don't feel commitment to read pages and pages and pages to get to the end of the chapter), and it is, in and of itself, as southern as a Mint Julep. To be taken slowly, and each page to be savoured upon...

Read this book...you will be very glad you did!Gone with the WindRhett Butler's People

As other reviewers have said, this is a soap opera set in the antebellum south. It's strength lies in its details about plantation life of the time. That is really the only plus I came away with from the book.

Where the novel fell down for me was in its character development and style. Too often the reader is told what has happened instead of being shown. The most glaring examples concerned the deaths of several characters. The worst involved a main character introduced at the very beginning of the book. I don't want to give too much more away, but the way it was handled was bizarre. The people most affected were not shown to be affected.

Some of the characters--Selma in particular--seemed completely pointless. Most of them are not three-dimensional and the primary female protagonist is almost too good to be true. She's a true soap opera victim.

There were some lovely descriptions, I did have a solid feel for Beulah Land itself, but most of the people living there made little meaningful impact.