Customer Reviews

Queen Bee of Mimosa Branch: A Novel

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The Queen Bee of Mimosa Branch focuses on Lin Breedlove Scott, who after 30 years of marriage to her first love, finds herself bitterly divorced. Now pessimistic towards all men, Lin returns home to Mimosa Branch, living with her parents, an aunt, and an uncle who isn't "with it" and a brother she has grown distant from.

Lin's most pressing issue is to save enough money to move into the apartment about her parent's garage, where she can regain a bit of privacy & self-respect. She lands a job at her old place of employment, the local drug-store. Lin gets to experience small town life once again, and her story unfolds as she mixes with a cast of zany characters and gets mixed up in the local small town politics & scandals. Queen Bee of Mimosa Branch had a lot of potential, and had it's cute moments, but overall I felt it was lacking in character development. The story was an easy read and the writing was good, I just couldn't identify with the main character as much as I hoped.

I just finished this book last night, and I was so irritated by the weird, incomplete and vapid ending that I couldn't wait to read the reviews on here today!

I try so hard to screen out all the man-hating, ball-busting women's books and I thought this would be a good one. Sure with humor (I certainly HOPE with humor) but with some insight and just a plain good read.

And the strange thing is that it was a pretty good read until about the last 3 chapters and then it just *Bam* like Emeril says, went south (pardon the pun) in a hurry.

I was checking out what I thought was some pretty good man insight with my sometimes too honest husband, and sure enough, she hit some nails straight in. But then, it's like she got sick, and someone else who *really* hates the male gender finished it for her while she recovered!

I could only think of those lit classes in college where you did a group book, with different ones of us taking a chapter to continue with the last one you read.

Hey, I'm flawed, you're flawed, everyone one is flawed, sisters. Not just men. Of course they are flawed too. After thinking about it, I decided that Ms Smith is still very wounded and can't get on with real life.

Don't waste your money, unless you really dig the books that diss the men and keep those ladies on their pedestal.

I read The Red Hat Club first but I did pick this one up first at the bookstore ~~ it looks fun and after having surgery, I was definitely in the mood for FUN! Linwood is the character that I wish I could be ~~ speaks her mind and gets away with it. And this book had me laughing in several spots ~~ which is the best medicine that the doctors could recommend.

Linwood moves home after thirty years of marriage ~~ moves home to an ailing father, a bossy mom, an uncle who is slowly losing his mind and his beleagured wife. There is the long-suffering brother who is home after his numerous divorce. Linwood was just not anxious to be back home ~~ but she didn't have any place left to go.

Stuck in real estate classes at night, she works at the local pharmacy during the day time ~~ Linwood becomes embroiled with the local politics in butting heads with the current mayor and council ~~ and she also falls into lust with her next-door-neighbor. This book is just fun ~~ and not so predictable as I thought it might be. It's full of sassy humor and wit ~~ perfect for any woman who is going through a male-bashing period.

This book is intended to be fun ~~ not a serious tome of life ~~ and it worked for me! It's also a perfect beach/pool read for this upcoming summer! Be sure to bring your glass of iced tea and enjoy!

3-18-05

The book probably deserved four stars because it was an okay, even at times an entertaining read, and the female and family relationships were interesting, but the main character's relationship with her "romantic" counterpart was totally unbelievable, and I found that very irritating. I mean, let's get real. No one, whether in real life or in a novel, should have to live up to perfection. If a guy is honest and upfront and generally decent but wants to get laid without promising happily ever after, that makes him a jerk? And a fifty year woman acting as skittish as an adolescent virgin? Please.

A friend loaned me this book, and I found the premise intriguing and the promise of an escape-read appealing. Maybe you do have to be Southern to "get it," as another reviewer claims.

Though I enjoyed the setting (which was well-described and interesting), a few of the characters (especially the preacher/candidate who gives it all up to God with something bordering right on lunacy), and the consistent battles with hot flashes (a subject I'm learning more about every day), I was brought up short by the offhand racism in both the attitude and characterization of this book. The main character, Lin, considers herself enlightened because she wants to bring water service to the poor black part of her small town, but she makes these kinds of observations: "An Oriental couple--Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese? I could never tell--hovered close to the register...A young black couple with a runny-nosed baby argued in some kind of an indecipherable rap jargon..." Trust me, there's plenty of this to go around, including a loudly dressed hippy lesbian whose art is all concerned with the organs of reproduction, who (of course) makes Lin very, very nervous.

Yes, maybe you do have to be Southern to find this amusing. I kept trying to like the book, and failing. I guess since I'm divorced, I am also supposed to be amused by Lin's hatred of men. No men are good, no woman has a happy marriage, any woman who is married is just putting a good face on the fact that her husband is messing around. Love does not exist outside the Breedlove family, apparently, and is only seen in self-sacrificing old white women who show Lin the meaning of real love (it involves forgiving a man everything and changing his Depends). Who does this character think she is, I wanted to ask? She hides a bunch of nice furniture paid for by her husband so the IRS won't get it, shoves it into a garage apartment, and thinks it's a triumph?

Add in the mawkish conversations between Lin and her in-recovery brother where they sit on the porch and she says how badly she misjudged him and he tears up and says, "That means a lot coming from you, Lin," (this happens over and over and over again, or at least it feels as if it does) and the talky-talky-talky descriptions of corrupt city politics, and I really had to wonder how on earth I was going to finish it.

Perhaps the most offensive part of the book it is the aborted romp between Grant and Lin. She knows exactly who he is and what he wants, and he goes to a great deal of trouble to treat her with gallantry, even though he is not offering her love. When they FINALLY get to bed, after too many descriptions of his legs and chest and spicy man-tang scent, she keeps laughing at him. When he becomes frustrated and lashes out, she erupts in hatred at the man. "Oh how dare he desire me and not love me! He should be thrashed, the scoundrel! Thank goodness I ate five brownies, got drunk and called a girlfriend rather than have some sex! I am a true Southern lady!" It's baffling, insulting, and representative of the huge ax-to-grind, chip-on-shoulder attitude of this main character.

I finally had to admit that I found her loathsome and the book tedious, and skimmed about a hundred pages, just to say I finished it. No one else needs to bother.

After reading this very badly written book my concern is how I am ever going to trust St. Martin's Press again. This book should never have been published by a company with such a trustworthy track record. Clearly, some house cleaning needs to be done at St. Martin's Press.

The plot development and character development have all the ear markings of a novice writer. Characters are trite, clichéd and very unbelievable. The lead character, Lin Breedlove, is one of the most unsympathetic and unlikable characters in current fiction. So much of Haywood Smith's personal bitterness is encapsulated in this character that you find yourself wishing Ms. Smith had spent a little more time in therapy, following the breakup of her own marriage, instead of charging readers the price of a book for her personal catharsis.

Ms. Smith has created a lead character so misguided, angry and judgmental that the story is painful to read. Some of her misguided beliefs include: Everyone in California has a sexually transmitted disease, you can get venereal disease by sitting on a chair at a wine bar, any man who wants sex without a lifelong commitment is an evil piece of trash and Democrats are bad. Smith barely misses a chance to toss an insult at Democrats, Bill Clinton in particular. So, Democrats beware. You are paying good cash to read a very bad novel and be insulted.

But even more unsettling is the self-righteous world view that masquerades as plot in this novel. It is not only bad writing but a true disregard for one's readers.

There are so many plot mistakes in this book, which should have been caught by Smith or the editors at St. Martin's Press, that I wonder if anyone actually read the final manuscript. At one point in the book, we are told Lin Breedlove first met her ex-husband in college. At another point in the book, we are told she first met him when she was 14 years old. Lin Breedlove criticizes and judges anyone and everything outside her personal sphere of experience and comfort, then harshly deals with anyone who dares criticize her.

The dialogue reads like text lifted from the latest self-help books and very bad pop psychology. What is designed to come off as a feminist point of view is, ultimately, Smith's own shrill cry of personal pain.

One of the most unsettling elements of the book is Smith's constant quoting of scripture, mingled with talk of ten-inch erections, dildos and oral sex. Both subjects, certainly, ideal components of a good novel. Mixed together by Smith's less than deft writing talent? Ummm...yuk.

And, personal note to Ms. Smith - Jerry Mather's of "Leave it to Beaver" fame is not gay.

One last point, there were so many typos in my copy of this book, that it is clear nobody proofed the final draft.

A true waste of money.

Why is it that the writing about Southerners are always the craziest? If you're looking for middle aged crazy southern women, look no further. You've found your book.

What woman can stand with head held high as her husband of 30 years runs off with a stripper, while the IRS strips her clean? Lin Breedlove can, even as she must crawl back to her parents' home and start over. And start over she does both physically and emotionally.

Lin does a lot of growing up after she returns to her parents' home. She gets involved in ousting the current mayor in an election process only the southern can call normal. She falls for her northern neighbor even when you want to scream at her to run away.

Over all, a nice pleasant read and the perfect escapeism for a great relaxing weekend.

Found this novel very trite and the lead character too overblown and shrill. Also as another reviewer said - what is with Jerry Mather's being gay??? I am sure that he is NOT. Loaded with errors and mis-spellings. I could not understand why the lead character did not want to be around her family. Her mother did not seem like a bad person so I did not think that this was developed at all. This novel could have been alot better and I am not going to read any of her other books. Too many good southern writers to read instead of reading Ms. Smith's. Read Cathy Holton's novel instead - wonderful southern women's novel.

I loved the title and the cover, but that was it. The book was full of stereotypes, cliches, and totally predictable (although unbelievable) characters and story lines.

Haywood Smith has typified the characters in small town Georgia.
Her colorful descriptions and attention to the smallest details
make this a much better read than the typical "southern belle"
humor novels. As to the review from Library Journal, I agree that Alzheimer's is not funny but those who care for the people
who suffer from this dreadful disease could use any help making light of a sometimes dire situation. Read this book!