Customer Reviews

Keep Your Mouth Shut and Wear Beige (Center Point Premier Fiction (Large Print))

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

 

 

WONDERFUL book! I'm tempted to reread it immediately because I like Seidel's voice so much. The narrator, Darcy, is an ICU nurse with two sons and a fairly recent, fairly amiable divorce. Then her older son, who is graduating from college and going on to med school and his similarly directed girlfriend decide to get married--and life changes. <g>

The future daughter-in-law, Cami Zander-Brown, is really nice even though her parents have this 12 bedroom beach house in the Hamptons and tons of money. But the Zander-Browns are good people, and the family includes a medically fragile youngest child and some complicated relationships.
Darcy, as mother of the groom, finds that her ex's new girlfriend, a Martha Stewartish blogging queen, wants to take over the wedding and edit out anything that isn't in Perfect Taste, and that includes Darcy.

But that's just the basic set-up. Seidel is an absolute master of insightful relationships, and all the many characters are beautifully delineated. This is women's fiction at its best--as entertaining as it is thoughtful. Highly recommended.

Although this book started off slowly, and seemed to sit on my nightstand forever before I picked it up, once I did, I couldn't put it down. The characters are vivid and real, and the modern-day dilemmas and situtations are astonishingly real.
Betsey Shpiro, Author "Queen's Hostess"

I've loved KGS for a long time and have read every book she's written. She used to write category romances, moved on to longer more complex romances and her past 2 books haven't had any romance per se in them at all. I miss the romance. I love the characters she creates, who feel so real, like friends next door. I like her dramas and dilemmas are all real world and pertinent. But I miss the romance.
So I bought this hard cover and it has a few shining moments, but I would have liked a bit more passion in it.

I have been a KGS fan for a long, long time. She wrote great, insightful, character driven romance novels. I own her entire romance back list and they have a permanent place on my keeper shelves.

However, she has moved on from the romance genre and started writing more main stream novels. Her first one, An Uncommon Degree of Popularity was not much to get excited over. Readable, but only just. This one is a little better. Maybe by the next one she will have a handle on this new direction she wants to go in. Me, I just wish she would go back to romance where she really stood out.

i LOVE this author - i only wish she'd put out more books like this! i have read it 3x now, loved every single page. you will too! :)

I adored Kathleen Gilles Seidel's A Most Uncommon Degree of Popularity so much I read it in one sitting and promptly bought a copy for my mother to read too. I was rather excited to see she had a new book out, although I'm still not sure why I didn't hear about it when it was published last spring. Keep Your Mouth Shut and Wear Beige is a delightful novel told from the perspective of Darcy, a recently divorced ICU nurse and mother of two, a senior in college and a senior in high school. The book takes its title from the advice given to the mother of the groom: keep your mouth shut and wear beige.

Although the story is told from the perspective of Darcy, Kathleen Gilles Seidel does a masterful job of understanding the perspective and motivations for actions of each of the characters. This feat is not easy; the book is less than three hundred pages and there are a considerable number of major characters. Keep Your Mouth Shut and Wear Beige is funny, smart and touching; the characters are endearing. I'm desperately hoping for a sequel, or at least another novel from Kathleen Gilles Seidel soon. I'm about to delve into the more romantic novels of her past as a current substitute.

Like another reviewer, I have always enjoyed Kathleen Gilles Seidel's books. Unlike that reviewer, I don't miss the romance. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a good romance, but when KGS writes a story, it is complete and stands on its own merits with or without romance.
Such is the case with this book. The characters are real, some endearing, some not so much. Like real life, even the villain isn't totally a villain, just too self-involved to think of anyone else, and too focused on the ultimate goal to let anything get in her way.
But, I digress. If you want a book about people who are interesting, whose lives you become involved with, a book that makes you want to see the best things happen for most of the characters, where the situations are totally engrossing without involving murder or mayhem, then read this book. It is great to know that good stories are still being written.

The story builds gradually, with lots of intricate layers. Just when you think you've got a character figured out, there's a small (or large) surprise. Some things you see coming, but others... well, it took a great deal of effort to put the book down sometimes. I just HAD to know what was coming!
The author nails her characters and is scrupulous in the details, making them very believable. Can't wait for her next one!

In Virginia ICU nurse Darcy Van Aiken and her ex spouse Mike get along reasonably well just as they did in their two decades of marriage and not just for the sake of their three kids; especially since two have left the nest. However the family dynamics are changing as their oldest son Jeremy is getting married soon to clothing designer Claudia Postlewaite.

Darcy was a bit apprehensive in meeting her future in-laws as they are wealthy and she and Mike are middle class, but she and Claudia's mom seem to get on quite well. However, Darcy is upset that her future daughter-in-law sees her nuptials as advertising to further her professional reputation and to insure she stays amongst the social upper crust. Darcy wants what is best for Jeremy, but resents paying an exorbitant emotional price.

Amusing with a light tone yet populated with fully developed characters, KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT AND WEAR BEIGE is actually a very deep look at the dynamics of relationships when external forces changes the internal energies. Darcy and Claudia are adversaries with Mike caught in the middle; the rest of the cast are pulled in one direction or another by the battling amazons. Kathleen Gilles Seidel uses hyperbole and humor to tell a poignant tale of how the adult child inadvertently nukes the expectations of the parent.

Harriet Klausner