The Sweet Potato Queens' Field Guide to Men: Every Man I Love Is Either Married, Gay, or Dead [Paperback]

Jill Conner Browne (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 5, 2004

If the Nobel committee offered awards in Gender Relations, the Sweet Potato Queens would have the prize all locked up. These fine ladies have devoted an absolutely inordinate amount of time to the pursuit of love, marriage, and great sex, and they’re just bursting to share their stories. Now their royal ringleader, bestselling author Jill Conner Browne, brings you The Sweet Potato Queens’ Field Guide to Men, a hilarious (and highly instructive) handbook about the men we love to hate, and the ones we love to love, with special revelations about:

Why he didn’t call
The sweetest revenge ever
The downright crazy things we will do for romance

Plus, memorable tales of Queenly dating adventures, the shameless lowdown on looking as young as you feel, and more royal recipes that are guaranteed to bring him home each and every night.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Browne's fourth training manual for belles gone bad is a Southern-fried delight. It's ostensibly a guide to men, but it doesn't take long for the book's focus to return to the care, feeding, maintenance and revenge secrets of the SPQs. Men (or "spuds") are classified in categories including the platonic "Bud Spud," the beautiful-but-dense "Scud Spud," the shouldn't-wear-bikinis "Pud Spud" and the elusive "Spud Spud" (aka "Mr. Right" or "The One"). Browne is at her laugh-till-it-hurts best detailing her adventures having an eye- and facelift ("I have pretty much adopted plastic surgery as my hobby"), bowling ("There are few things in life... with a cringe-and-gag factor to rival that of putting rented shoes on one's own personal feet") and losing weight (temporarily) with acupuncture ("We would—and have—done anything to lose weight, except, of course, the obvious one: changing our eating habits"). As usual, there are also mouth-watering recipes for those with steel arteries. One bacon, cheese and cracker concoction advises a cooling off period "for maximum reabsorption of any grease that may have inadvertently escaped during baking." This is a high-caloric treat.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

The Sweet Potato Queens are a group of Southern women of a certain age known for their no-holds-barred approach to life and their no-nonsense brand of advice. Already having tackled love, financial planning, and cooking in previous best-sellers, chief queen Conner Browne returns with this guide to understanding the habits--mating, grooming, and everything in-between--of men. She categorizes the male of the species into eight groups: the Bud Spud, Dud Spud, Crud Spud, Fuddy-Dud Spud, Pud Spud, Blood Spud, Scud Spud, and the ultimate--the Spud Stud. Often it seems like she's re-treading old and tired male stereotypes, but she backs up her generalizations with anecdotal references. These hilarious and often unbelievable real-life snapshots are what separate this book from other male-bashing relationship guides. Perhaps most importantly, Browne reminds women that though good men exist, they're not the key to happiness. At times this field guide reads more like a sales catalog directing readers to the Web site where they can purchase Sweet Potato Queens' merchandise, but that won't deter Browne's legions of devotees. Aleksandra Kostovski
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 241 pages
• Publisher: Three Rivers Press; First Edition edition (October 5, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400049687
• ISBN-13: 978-1400049684
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #70,776 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jill Conner Browne is the New York Times bestselling author of six Sweet Potato Queens books. She lives and writes on all things Queenly from Jackson, Mississippi.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Looking in New England, October 15, 2004

By 

Ayla "Ayla" (Providence, RI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Sweet Potato Queens' Field Guide to Men: Every Man I Love Is Either Married, Gay, or Dead (Paperback)

I had to leave the South, as Queen Jill and Tammy had already taken all the Cutest Boys...at least in the South! Last night I was asked to leave Amtrak's "Quiet Car" during my commute home, as even my attempts to stifle my laughter were disturbing the other passengers. As an acupuncturist, I must advise Jill that not only does it work for weight loss, but for "facial rejuvenation" as well. Unfortunately for me, treating myself would intrude on my lolling about time.
This is serving not only as a refresher course "Guide to Men," but I am also reading passages to my daughter as it is time for her education! She is speechless...mostly because she can't breathe.
Hilarious!!! All those things we think about men...the things we say to our girlfriends about our bodies and our men...and all the things our mothers told us that ladies don't say out loud!!

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great gift for anyone down in the dumps over a man, November 12, 2004

By 

M. Garrison (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Sweet Potato Queens' Field Guide to Men: Every Man I Love Is Either Married, Gay, or Dead (Paperback)

I love all the Sweet Potato Queens books, and this one is right up there with the very first one -- truly a great, hysterical read, all the way through to the end.

One of the things I like best about all the Sweet Potato Queen books is how much they celebrate women of all ages and shapes. Too much chick lit can sometimes leave a girl wondering if the really fun things in life only happen to thin girls in the city, but that's definitely not the case here.

Not only a fun book to read, but definitely a great gift -- for anyone upset about their man, or for a man who really wants to understand women but just isn't getting it.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Just didn't have the old magic, November 25, 2005

By 

David Michael Cohen (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Sweet Potato Queens' Field Guide to Men: Every Man I Love Is Either Married, Gay, or Dead (Paperback)

My wife and I have loved the Sweet Potato Queen books from the beginning. Reading them together became something of a ritual for us. This book, however, left us both rather disappointed.

Jill Conner Browne is a very talented writer, no question about that, and her latest book did offer several laugh-out-loud moments. Her descriptions of the various types of men (and the women who are involved with them) was very funny. She devoted one brief chapter to explaining why "he" didn't call, which combined humor and down-home good sense as only the SPQ can do.

However, Conner-Browne's distinctive literary voice has changed over the years, and not for the better. In one chapter she goes on endlessly about her plastic surgery experience, from which she recuperates with a shopping spree. In another section, she describes her experience with acuptuncture, blissfully glossing over the expense of it. Previously, the SPQ came across as folksy and full of love-for-life. In discussing her high-priced indulgences, however, she comes across as spoiled and decadent. This kind of self-worshipping prattle distances her from those of us who don't have endless piles of money, and frankly makes her book less enjoyable to read.

Mind you, this doesn't mean that the latest SPQ book isn't worth reading. My wife and I agreed that we were both glad we read it. However, we also agreed that compared to the previous books in the series, it just wasn't as good.