Loose Lips [Paperback]

Rita Mae Brown (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: BANTAM (2004)
• ASIN: B000WS6IC4
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)

More About the Author

Rita Mae Brown is the bestselling author of the Sister Jane novels-Outfoxed, Hotspur, Full Cry, The Hunt Ball, The Hounds and the Fury, The Tell-Tale Horse, and Hounded to Death-as well as the Sneaky Pie Brown mysteries and Rubyfruit Jungle, In Her Day, Six of One, and The Sand Castle, among many others. An Emmy-nominated screenwriter and a poet, Brown lives in Afton, Virginia.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Laugh out Loud !, December 27, 1999

By 

Susann M. Saghatelian - See all my reviews

This review is from: Loose Lips (Hardcover)

Another Rita Mae masterpiece. Jutz & Wheezie once again square off with dynamic and often hysterically funny exchanges. The touching part is that their love for one another always shines through. Cora continues with her compelling wisdom, Ramelle with her gentleness and charm. A must read if you enjoyed Six of One and Bingo.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Rita Mae is capable of much better, November 29, 2000

By 

dampscribbler (Portland, OR USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Loose Lips (Paperback)

"Six of One" and "Bingo" were strong, funny books. Unfortunately, "Loose Lips" is a weak follow-up. The first third of the book disappointed me most, with its brief retellings of some of the best stories from the earlier two books.

"Loose Lips" begins in 1939, not long before the US entered WWII. The Hunsenmeier sisters are already grown, and Wheezie's two daughters, Mary and Maizie, are soon to leave her house. The primary relationships explored in this book are the ones between Juts and Wheezie and between Juts and her adopted daughter, Nickel. Unfortunately, we don't learn anything new about the relationship between sisters, and the mother-daughter relationship comes into the book pretty late. As Nickel develops into a headstrong little kid, the book gets more interesting, but I didn't really feel like it was worth slogging through the disappointing retellings of great stories like the night of Nicekl's adoption. For better entertainment than this book offers, re-read the first two books ("Six of One" and "Bingo",) and then read Brown's autobiography "Rita Will."

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brown at her witty best., November 25, 1999

By 

Joi Cardinal - See all my reviews

This review is from: Loose Lips (Hardcover)

Loose Lips was a pleasure to read, and Brown just gets better with age. Her incredible ear for dialogue always thrills me, and here she reaches new heights with Louise and Julia's zingy repartee. Unfortunately Brown focuses so much on how her characters talk that she fails to create vivid pictures of how they look. I used to think this was a purposeful technique in her Mrs. Murphy mysteries (since who would expect a cat to pay attention to people's looks), but I found the same situation in Loose Lips: in my mind her characters tend to be witty, fast-talking amorphous blobs. Brown's characters also unabashedly face the realities of raising children, the honest truth that there probably is not a mother alive who, as Louise so cleverly puts it, hasn't thought at some desperate or frazzled time in her life of making her child an angel, i.e., dispatching her to heaven. WARNING: If descriptions of horrendous child-rearing offend you, this is probably a book better left unread. Juts' verbal and physical abuse of Nickel (including burning her with her cigarette), while entirely in character, is just plain frightening, and makes the latter, post-adoption portion of the book much less enjoyable than the beginning.