Customer Reviews

Bobbie Faye's Very (very, very, very) Bad Day: A Novel

5 star:		(40)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Bobbie Faye Sumrall is the type of gal a guy could really be attracted to--in the same way a moth is attracted to a flame. This tart-tongued Cajun's day starts out with the destruction of her trailer and with her accidental parcticipation in a bank robbery, and this is before things start going downhill. Bobbie Faye is Contraband Days queen, and at the center of this insane romp of kidnapping, intrigue, suspicion, threats, car chases, gunfire, voodoo and a string of utter disasters is Bobby Faye's homely tiara. Bad guys want it and will kill to get it, even though it seems to be worthless; Bobbie Faye won't give it up because it represents her family's highest achievement.

Toni Causey's achievement is to pack so much disaster (and laughter) into a single day. Bobbie Faye's Very (Very, Very, Very) Bad Day is a lively, thoroughly enjoyable summer read.

This is the exact same book as Bobbie Faye's Very (very, very, very) Bad Day. If it says anywhere on the book that it's a reprint, then it's very tiny print on the bottom of the back cover.

I love the story. I don't love the way the publisher has duped readers in order to boost book sales.

The canon of southern literature has a new voice. It belongs to Bobby Faye Sumrall and she's mad as hell. Bobby Faye is a human disaster magnet. She shoots better than a man, swears better than a sailor, kicks... well, you don't want to know what she kicks, and she doesn't know why the universe keeps sending bad luck her way but she sure does believe the best defense is a good offense. Toni Causey's hilarious cast of characters will rock and blast you through the worst day on the planet. You'll love the ride. But most of all, youy'll love Bobby Faye for being cute and dangerous at the same time and for showing you that falling in love isn't an emotional experience, it's an endurance trial.

This is the beach read of the summer!

If you love Janet Evanovich and Carl Hiassen, you will adore Bobbie Faye.

This book made me laugh until I hurt. It's funny and exciting and romantic. Be sure you pick up your copy and read it -- you'll be glad you did.

Look out Stephanie Plum here comes Bobbie Faye Sumrall! Bobbie Faye is one of the best characters to come along in a while and in this debut novel, you quickly become a fan. Bobbie Faye will have you laughing from the beginning of this book to the end. Her adventure will leave you breathless and begging for more.

I am very anxious to see what Bobbie Faye will be getting into in her next adventure.

I recently attended a panel discussion of authors in which one of those in attendance indicated that he didn't think of BOBBIE FAYE'S VERY (VERY, VERY, VERY) BAD DAY, Toni McGee Causey's debut novel, as a thriller. Fair enough. But I beg to differ, and mightily. Everything in this impressive work screams thriller. You have your explosions. You have your karate. You have your sex --- chaste, yes, but some of the descriptions of Bobbie Faye Sumrall, the erstwhile heroine of the piece, are difficult to get out of your mind. Thriller? Yes. Nonstop action, mystery and suspense. And laughs as well.

Anyone who has ever awakened to find that their day has started without them and already rolled behind the eight-ball will identify with Bobbie Faye, whose morning begins with a household crisis of mini-biblical proportions and flows downhill from there. On what should be the best day of her year --- when she reigns as queen of the Lake Charles, Louisiana Contraband Days Festival --- Bobbie Faye has to deal with the kidnapping of Roy, her no-good, waste-of-skin brother, the theft of her tiara (which is the only thing she inherited from her mother) and a police manhunt of which she is the subject. All Bobbie Faye has to do is recover her tiara, give it to her brother's kidnappers as ransom, keep what is left of her trailer from being ransacked, hold Children's Services at bay so they don't abscond with her niece, and reign supreme as festival queen.

How is Bobbie Faye going to do it? Easy. She kidnaps a guy in a bank parking lot. And her luck may be running true to form. Trevor, her "victim," is just a little too worldly, knows a bit too much about guns, helicopters and lock-picking, and is really good looking. The fact that one of the policemen in hot pursuit of Bobbie Faye is one of her (many) ex-boyfriends doesn't help matters either. Well, actually, in some ways it does. And Bobbie Faye, a one-woman Cajun wrecking crew, needs all the help she can get. It's not that she's hard to find --- just follow the smoke --- but the problem is what to do with her. By the end of the day, she has the police, FBI and a couple of sets of bad guys after her, and we're not sure where Trevor fits into it all. It really doesn't make any difference; Bobbie Faye has them all outnumbered.

There are many things to love about this book --- the plot, the pacing, the dialogue --- but my own favorite element is the characterization. Go to Louisiana, travel east on I-10, past Baton Rouge, and head south. Stop into a grocery store, buy a bag of cracklins' and an ounce of head cheese, and walk around a bit. You'll eventually bump into everyone you read about in BOBBIE FAYE'S VERY (VERY, VERY, VERY) BAD DAY. And I have a feeling that (almost) all the characters will be back. But if you want a short description of this great novel, think Die Hard in the swamp. And Bobbie Faye? She's a titanium magnolia.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

In Lake Charles, Louisiana, twenty-eight years old Bobbie Faye Sumrall wonders what evil she must have done in a previous life to have so many catastrophes. Everyday is a day in which Murphy of law fame proves an optimist in Bobby Faye's mind. Somehow whatever could go wrong does; if by some miracle a day without disaster occurs, Bobbie Faye assumes she was either dreaming or living someone else's life.

Take today, a normal day in the life of the mistress of disaster. The washing machine inundates her trailer home with biblical level flood waters. Kidnappers have abducted her younger brother Roy (she does feel sorry for the felons) demanding her tiara as ransom. Although she needs the tiara to wear as queen of the Contraband Days Festival, she plans to do the right thing if not for Roy, for her five-year-old niece who lives with her. However, at the bank to get the tiara, thieves steal her precious jewelry. Bobbie Faye forces driver Trevor to take her in his truck to follow those thieves. This is just another day in the life of the mistress of disaster.

This is a wild lighthearted bayou tale stars a heroine who feels like a cloud is always over her head (think of JOE BTFSPLK of Li'l Abner fame). The story line is a zany series of vignettes as one thing after another goes wrong, which to Bobbie Faye is the norm in her mad, mad, mad, mad world. BOBBIE FAYE'S VERY (VERY, VERY, VERY) BAD DAY is a very good day for readers.

Harriet Klausner

Toni McGee Causey's BOBBIE FAYE'S VERY (very, very, very) BAD DAY is GREAT. I loved it. No, check that. I LOVED it!

Fun and funny, with a fabulous setting and some terrific action. This girl can write! Can't wait for book two!

This book is just plain funny! Great local color, vivid, over-the-top characters and non-stop action. Perfect for whiling away the lazy summer days to come.

I don't know why I liked this book, but I sure as hell did.

Bobbie Faye's Very (very, very, very) Bad Day is a wild and bodacious read. The characters - all of them - are over-the-top stereotypical to the point of caricature, yet for every time my mind said "corny-silly-ridiculous" my eyes kept sweeping over page after page, delighting in every redneck phrase and each Lucy-on-steroids type stunt.

I grew up in a south Georgia hole-in-the-wall town that pretty much could've been the setting for this crazy book, but if WE had a Bobbie Faye, I never knew her. But I wish I had.

Perhaps it's because I'm a fifty-year-old schoolteacher who hasn't seen much adventure in decades. Perhaps because reading is the bottle I crawl into when I want to be someone else, and this time I got to be someone really FUN.

Or perhaps it's just knowing I can ride through the streets of my hometown again with a better feeling.

Because when I pass those rusty trailers, run-down Jim Walter homes, and various forms of common southern shelter, I'll see beyond the outside and imagine that in one of them resides a real Bobbie Faye. And that hope gives the whole worn-down community a different and vibrant new color.