Customer Reviews

The Mile-High Hair Club

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This is an funny, sweet story. The author's Southern heritage and love of the region is on display here, in the pages and in all of the characters. The heroine and her potential beau are appealing, but the real fun to be had is with the colorful supporting characters - the eccentric aunts and the must-read-to-be-believed character of Shirley Jones. (And I don't mean Mrs. Partridge, y'all.)

The book also manages to, in the midst of all of the fun, make a few insightful comments about the beauty pageant world. It comes together at the end in a fizzy blur, just as a nice glass of champagne should.

Following her mother's stroke, Bailey finds herself pulled from her fast lane life back to her slow moving small town. It's hard to tell which is hardest on her, the culture shock or family shock. Her once vibrant mother is trapped in an almost alien body. Bailey's younger sister is back at home, unwed and pregnant, and her two aunts, Bits and Bubbles, are consumed with beating out Shirley Jones; not the former Mrs. Partridge, a man who manages beauty pageant contestants, at the Miss Butter Bean Competition. Their main hope of a victory lies in a young woman with an acerbic tongue and enough arrogance to fill three contests. Before she knows what's hit her, Bailey finds herself helping her two slightly daffy aunts in this event, and making it her project to help a young girl with technicolor shaded hair and a desire to shock, become the Butter Bean Queen. Somewhere in the chaos, Bailey begins to find love, but that is a secondary consideration at best; crises take priority.

*** Peppered with cultural references to eighties television and Southern vs. Northern humor, this book takes readers on a wildly rambling, yet not unrealistic ride through a small Southern town. Sharp observations are toned down with laughter. Seeing a bit more romance might have been welcome, but if you enjoyed Steel Magnolias, then you will like this as well. ***

Reviewed by Amanda Killgore, Freelance Reviewer.

Bailey Roberts left Crestonville, Virginia for New York City several years ago to make her mark in the theater. Though she nearly succeeded as an actress, she has fine job as the talent producer at Expedition Network and has a boyfriend for four years who fails to get the message of what an empty drawer in her apartment means.

With her mother recovering rather oddly from a stroke, Bailey goes home to help her younger sister Jeanne with their mother, but her sis is missing in action. As usual home is chaos, assisted by her Aunts Bits and Bubbles competing against Shirley "not the Partridge" Jones to sponsor the winner of the Miss Butter Bean Competition and by her sibling who has come home pregnant and man less. However, this time beleaguered Bailey finds herself attracted to the agronomist next door Taylor Montgomery, which makes her stay more than palpable; it makes it lovingly divine.

The Roberts extended family is the Steel Magnolia version of You Can't Take It with You. Bailey is the "normal" one in a sea of likable nutcases, but the "runaway" soon gets caught up in the zaniness and becomes a born again convert to the world of the southern small town eccentric. Though the acerbic satirical scrutiny is somewhat abated by the amusing situations, readers will enjoy this slice of Southern lifestyle.

Harriet Klausner