Customer Reviews

Magnolia Wednesdays

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Wendy Wax has magically turned Magnolia Wednesdays into one of those homey, cozy, and totally intriguing peeks into the Southern way of life. For a woman who thought she'd totally escaped that world, Vivien Armstrong Gray finds herself suddenly catapulted back there when she is shot in the derriere while investigating a story. When the video ends up on You-Tube, and her employers think she needs to take a step back and they bring in an "understudy" for her to train, she quits.

Huffily, she takes off for her home in Atlanta, where she moves in with her sister Melanie and prepares to follow her around in suburbia. But first, in the process of quitting, she has taken on a free-lance assignment to write Postcards from Suburbia for her NY newspaper.

On the way out of NY, though, she visits her doctor to follow up on the "wound," and discovers something else unexpected...she is pregnant. Her boyfriend is on assignment in various spots around the world, and she decides not to tell him...not for awhile, anyway.

What does Vivi discover while exploring this "strange land of suburbia"? What happens along the way to totally change her view of almost everything? And in the end, will she finally find her own happiness?

This could have been one of those predictable chick-lit stories, but Wendy Wax has a way of turning a phrase and pulling the reader in. She writes with humor, depth, and insight, which earned five stars from me.

Cute, typical but a good fluff read. Vivi is an independent woman who lives an edgy lifestyle as a journalist. She fancies herself a wonderful writer and a single independent woman. However the bottom drops out of her life when she is replaced by someone younger, shot in the buttocks and surprise surprise she is pregnant.

So she heads home, as we all do when the going gets rough. She doesn't tell anyone in her family she is pregnant or she is writing this article anon. about surburbia and the crazy people in it.

Then she thinks there is something fishy about her brother-in-law's "accidental" death and investigates secretly. However, we must all remember our secrets catch up with us and they might hurt more than help.

Also, Vivi's boyfriend Stone is a reporter as well and is overseas at the time so Vivi doesn't tell him she is pregnant with their baby, so how will it all end?

I am sure you can guess, which takes some of the fun out of it. A few surprises mixed in, but generally a story you can breeze through and doesn't really take your breath away...

This book was an even read about an investigative reporter whose life changes quickly when she finds she is pregnant after being shot while trying to capture a story. I loved the characters, the life lessons and the way Wax can describe suburban living like she was describing a foreign country. She also takes her time so this is not a great book for the impatient. While this is not my favorite of Wax's books, I'm looking forward to more from her.

I read a review of Magnolia Wednesdays on the Barnes & Noble website and it caught my attention because I'm a southern girl and it sounded like an interesting story about a southern woman going back to her roots. The majority of the book is set in a suburb of Atlanta which I'm very familiar with, so I enjoyed the reference points to specific roads and areas of town. Beyond that, the novel is focused around an investigative reporter who works in NYC, but is a transplant from GA. The fun starts early in this book as she gets shot in the bum covering a story, unexpectedly quits her job and finds out she's pregnant (also unexpectedly) within a very short period of time. She decides the best thing to do is sublet her apartment in the big apple and head home to GA where her parents, sister, niece and nephew live. She thought she was moving to a slow-paced, boring life, but finds that living with family is actually enjoyable and sometimes the suburbs have more adventure and intrige than the big city. Magnolia Wednesdays ia a quickly digestible and highly enjoyable read and I look forward to reading more of Ms. Wax's works of fiction.

Magnolia Wednesdays was a really great read for me! I had to laugh from the very beginning when Vivi, an investigative reporter, gets shot in the butt while covering a story. She ends up on You Tube in a very embarrassing video that she is quite certain has been seen by everyone in the world. After this Vivi's life seems to unravel right before her eyes. Not only is she without a job because she finds out she's being replaced by someone younger and quits but she ultimately finds out the reason for her crazy outbursts seem to be because she is pregnant at forty-something.

Vivi decides to relocate to suburban Atlanta and stay with her sister Melanie and her kids Shelby and Trip. Melanie's husband passed away not long ago and while Vivi had gone out to be with her for a while, she wanted nothing more than to leave and get back to her life and job. Vivi's really never been one for spending quality time with her family. Her idea of a visit is in and out. It so happens that while Vivi is desperately trying to land herself a job she comes up with the idea of going to live with her sister and writing a column about the suburbanites in Atlanta from an outsider looking in.

Vivi finds she has more than enough material to write several columns. She follows her sister, niece and nephew around and finds that the people around them and their lifestyle in general provides her with all kinds of angles to write about. As her column becomes known in Atlanta people are running her down like crazy saying she has no right to write such downright mean things about them. However nobody knows it's her writing this column as she is writing under a false name, Scarlett Leigh.

As time wears on though and Vivi's pregnancy becomes much more noticeable, Vivi finds herself starting to really like these people. Not to mention how close she's becoming with her sister Melanie. Vivi had no idea how much Mel had to deal with on a daily basis as a single mother and she is in awe of her. In the beginning Vivi actually believed what she wrote but as time goes on she realizes that really these people are all doing the best they can for their families and all she's doing is hiding behind a name.

I really liked Vivi because aside from her many flaws she really is a likable character. The only thing she drove me literally crazy on was her inability to let her boyfriend know she was pregnant. Stone is a reporter as well but he works from war torn countries and that's where he was stationed during her pregnancy. She didn't want him to worry and be distracted and therefore doesn't tell him about the baby. At these times I just wanted to give her a big slap upside the head because it wasn't fair to keep it from him. Other than that I loved how she grew as a person and realized the importance of family before it was too late.

Magnolia Wednesdays had it all for me - it had me laughing at times and crying at others. It is a novel that is funny and heart warming with a few twists thrown in for good measure. Aside from Vivi, the whole cast of characters are great and you find yourself really beginning to feel a part of their lives as you flip through the pages. I will definitely be reading more of Wendy Wax in the future!

I needed a light book to read after reading about 4 books dealing with ww2, so I choose this one. I enjoyed it and it kept my interest even though I knew what the ending would be. It was light, fun at times, true to life at times. I didnt realize I had read other books by this author and enjoyed them as well.

This was a fun & enjoyable read. I loved the different people and their different lives and how it all comes together.. happy ending :)

Vivien Gray is down on her luck. She has lost her job in NYC and her career as a top investigative journalist is headed downhill. Because she is down on her luck and feeling like an old has been at 41 she leaves New York and heads for her family in the suburbs of Atlanta. She calls her younger sister, Melanie, who is a widow with two teenagers and tells her she is coming home.

Vivien has been incognito for 10 years when it involves her sister, rarely staying in town for longer than necessary, when she even comes home. Once she returns home she joins a dancing class at the studio that her sister owns and becomes friends with a group of women who are Melanie's friends. All of the women in the dancing group have a story to tell and they begin to share their problems with one another. However, Vivien has secrets that she is keeping from her sister, her parents, and her boyfriend.

She begins a secret investigation into the death of Melanie's husband, she writes, under a pseudonym, a sniping column about living in suburban Atlanta, and she keeps a secret from her boyfriend, Stone, who is a reporter in Afghanistan. By the end of the story, Vivien's secrets begin to destruct and hurt the ones she comes to love the most.

I could not put this one down. It is a great story and if you like stories about the south, then this is a real winner.

I really enjoyed this book. The main character, Viv, being replaced by a younger version of herself runs back home to live with her sister to regroup. Her sister is a widow and single mother of two teenagers. Viv"s sister owns a dance studio and it is through this dance studio that we meet the various other characters in the book.

Viv begs to accept a position writing undercover for a column in a paper. I loved her descriptions of the helicopter parents--the life in suburbia, her increased appetite with her pregnancy, and the driving lessons with her nephew. She goes on to describe the over-the top preparation for the junior prom These descriptions are perfect.

This is a real page turner with very well developed characters from Ruth, the older insightful woman to the younger niece and nephew. Viv manages to connect with all of the characters on different levels. Viv"s character grows as the story progresses and she begins to understand the people she makes fun of. As a helicopter parent myself (sorry, I'm not gonna lie) I truly laughed at the various descriptions.

I suggest you read this book, it made me laugh out loud and cry.

This is the first of Wendy Wax's novels for me but I'm sold. Our local UPS store guy turned me on to her work. Living in the Atlanta suburbs like she describes, I find the following very apt:

"When they reached her exit, Melanie slowed. A series of turns took them unto four-laned Marietta Highway, which was also called Upper Roswell Road or simply 120. In the Atlanta area and its environs, it had apparently been decided that there was no reason to settle for the one street name when you could use two or three. If the name had the word "Peachtree" in it, so much better."

Her protagonist's thoughts of bumper stickers:
"Reading them as they flew by, Vivien knew what schools their children attended, how many sports they played, where they vacationed, what diseases they wanted to wipe out, and who they'd voted for as well as where they worshipped and exactly how proud they were to be an American."

Maybe it's just me but I found those hilarious and so did my husband who I read them out loud to! Her main character Vivien Gray, while not initially the nicest person around and frankly speaking more than a little self-absorbed, she was still likeable and she grew as the story unfolded. Her secondary characters were intriguing and she had a very good angle on family, friendships, kids, parenting and motherhood, etc. It's "mommylit" at its finest. I hope Wendy Wax is not offended by that label.

This had me in stitches:
"And you're about as close to being a real journalist as a grain of sand is to being the Sahara dessert."

Scarket Leigh was the best. :) You'll have to read it to find out who that is.

The book comes complete with a Reading Group Guide which I liked as well. I will definitely endeavor to read her other titles, especially "The Accidental Bestseller." I recommend "Magnolia Wednesdays" for any woman, especially if you live in the suburbs. It will brighten your day.

I am a fan.