Helpful Score: 5
What a beautiful book. Growing up in a small town, which I did, doesn't seem wonderful when it is happening. It is in looking back. I have lent this book to a few people and they all loved it. Again, her characters are just wonderful.
Helpful Score: 4
Riveting from beginning to end. A sweeping story that runs from 1946-2000. Elmwood Springs, Missouri grows from a post-World War 11 town surrounded by farmland to a 21st century enclave near the highway but never loses its sence of utopia. And it is full of some colorful people.
Helpful Score: 4
I LOVEDLOVEDLOVED this book from beginning to end and am not sure I want to give it up! If you love good story and southern fiction, this is a must-read for you!
Helpful Score: 3
Wonderful! I'm ready to read another one by Fannie Flagg. You really become part of this small town and get to know the characters like they are your neighbors. Highly recommended for readers who like a "good story."
Helpful Score: 2
excellant as only the way fnanie flagg can write a book ...
Helpful Score: 2
Spectacular!
Helpful Score: 2
I've loved all Fannie Flagg's books but I think this was my favorite. I hated for it to end.
Helpful Score: 2
This is one of the most charming, captivating and funniest books I have read in along time! I will be checking out her others real soon!
Helpful Score: 2
I absolutely love Fannie Flagg and this book is wonderful. A story about small town innocence, life and love. Enjoy.
Helpful Score: 1
Stories of families & small town living Good story telling
Helpful Score: 1
Cute...kind of nostalgic.
Helpful Score: 1
An absolute jewel of an audiobook!! Fannie Flagg reads the book and does a wonderful job. She will have you laughing and crying and wondering why you never listened to her before! A tip: Try to listen to this book before you listen to "Can't Wait to Get to Heaven"...as wonderful, if not better.
Helpful Score: 1
I loved this book. With each chapter, I was increasingly involved with and intrigued by the characters. The span of time covered was impressive, but I never felt that I was being given a history lesson. This is a great escape to a gentler time. Neighbor Dorothy became a friend and I was eager to sit in her living room and hear about all the local events. This book brought me to tears, in a good way, toward the end. I can say no more...don't want to ruin it for any other reader...just highly recommend it!
Helpful Score: 1
A wonderful book! The characters are very real and the situations amusing. So much of "real life" in the details.
Helpful Score: 1
Flagg's usual cast of colorful characters with rich stories to tell.
If you want to read something cheerful and sunny, then this is this book for you. Like all of Fannie Flagg's novels, Standing in the Rainbow gives the reader a glimpse of life in a small town in Missouri in the past. She paints a picture of love, caring, and neighbors who supported each other through the trials and the triumphs of life.
Another Elmwood story about Dorothy and her popular radio program and the Oatman Family Gospel Singers. It takes you from post World War II into the the 2000s. Fannie Flagg's books have so much going on in them it is hard to give a story outline.
This book tells a lot of stories about a lot of people in Elmwood, Missouri starting in the 1940's and moving on to the 1990's. Fannie describes all the characters in town and reveals bits and pieces of their lives over this 50 year period. I wasn't sure about it at first. I felt like the book was aimlessly telling about the lives of these people with very little plot involved. I almost stopped reading it but because there are so many good reviews of this book I continued. I'm glad that I did. I also took heart that one reviewer said the book picked up speed after the first 60 pages and she was correct.
The story is really just about life and the little things that happen while we are living it but once I started to know the characters better the book grew on me. It could have been a little shorter in length as it started to feel like it was rambling at times but all in all a good and easy read.
The story is really just about life and the little things that happen while we are living it but once I started to know the characters better the book grew on me. It could have been a little shorter in length as it started to feel like it was rambling at times but all in all a good and easy read.
Fannie Flagg at her best. A glimpse into life of small town America in the '40s & '50s
I could not put it down. Yet at the end there was something missing.
This was a wonderful book, full of Fannie Flagg's quirky characters. The story line goes from 1946 to 2000 and when you come to the last page you will realize you have lost some very good friends.
This is one of the best books I've ever read! It is about small town life in Southern Missouri in "the good old days." As someone who grew up in Southern Missouri this book really hit home. It's such a cozy, happy book, while I was reading it I was in the best mood!
Not as good as "Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man" but well worth the read. The characters stay with you even after the last page.
As always writer can evoke emotions from you that you didn't know were there! Great read!
I love Fanny Flagg, she is so in touch
Good--not Fried Green Tomatoes good---but good reading for sure.
Everything Fannie Flagg writes is an absolute gem!
I just loved this book. I felt like I really knew these characters and it was fun following their lives and dreams in a small town. This book was a feel good book and very enjoyable. I also loved the short chapters. This book brought back some of my own childhood memories. It was a fun read and I was disappointed when I finished it because it was so enjoyable.
Oh this book is hilarious and very well written for this is the second book I have read by her and love her as an author for I felt as if I were in the 50's with the characters and wish I knew of a town just like the one in this book.
Fannie Flagg is one of my favorite writers. This book is the prequel of sorts to Welcome to the World, Baby Girl, which is one of my favorite novels! This book really made me laugh!
Very easy reading, good character development; not a whole lot of depth, but funny and sweet.
A very sweet, easy read.
Fannie Flagg is well known for writing Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe. But I like this book even better! She's a terrific storyteller. This is about a small town, and Dorothy, who bakes and has a radio show. This is a wonderful book!
I loved this book! Good, easy read. Can't wait to read Fannie Flagg's new book.
The story runs from 1946 to 2000. Elmwood, Missouri grows from a post-World War II town surrounded by farmland to a twenty-first century enclave near the highway. It parallels what many of us have experienced or are experiencing in small towns now. It is a good story and definitely worth reading.
I love Fannie Flagg. I absolutely loved this book. The characters are so genuine. This was one of those books where you are sad when it is over and wonder what the characters are doing now.
Great characters. Interesting read.
Great...full of nostalgia...difficult to put down!
Covering 1946-2000, Flagg chronicles the lives and changes in society through the eyes of various delightful characters. Written with charm, humor and grace, it's a slice of American life at it's core.
Wonderful story. I was drawn in immediately and felt as if I'd known these characters all my life. Written in a way that made every person and place easy to visualize.
The characters come at you thick and fast...Dorothy, prodigous pie- baker, supremely likable and conscientious neighbor and hostess of a wildly popular daily radio program; Minnie Oarman the generously fleshed and bighearted lead singer (barietone)of the Oatman Family Gospel Singers; Beatrice,the Little Blind songbird, who appears regularly on the Neighbor Dorothy program untiil she is swept away by the Oatmans; prickly Aunt Elnor who owns a series of orange cats all named Sonny. Glaggs's inventiveness never losses its energy.
Very good--------------- My first Fannie Flagg book and I will now read "Welcome to the world baby girl"
Another great read from Fannie Flagg!
A good read. Fannie Flagg is a very enjoyable author.
This book was wonderful! I loved it! It's about a wholesome family. It starts in 1946 to 2000. An American Apple Pie book that is tasty and oh so 'feel good' reading.
Good, old-fashioned fun.
Fannie Flagg is an awsome author. This book is my favorite out of the 3 that I have read by her. The characters are warm, funny, delightful.
As with all of Fannie Flagg's books that I've read, this was a good one. I felt like I had grown up in the town of Elmwood Springs, Missouri by the time I'd finished this book.
I would have to recommend CAN'T WAIT TO GET TO HEAVEN by Fannie Flagg over STANDING IN THE RAINBOW.
SITR has no plot, so it relies on small town Americana charm to fill its 530 pages, which felt like a chore after the first 100 pages.
While the characters are likable and the setting is full of charm, even Neighbor Dorothy's radio program can breed sheer boredom after a while. C+
SITR has no plot, so it relies on small town Americana charm to fill its 530 pages, which felt like a chore after the first 100 pages.
While the characters are likable and the setting is full of charm, even Neighbor Dorothy's radio program can breed sheer boredom after a while. C+
Loved this book! I'm a very nostalgic person. This book fulfilled the nostalgic vein of my body.....The book begins in the 1940s, goes through the 50s, 60s, 60, 80s, and into the 90s with the same family and town residents......As I was born in the 50s, the earlier part of the book really reminds me of childhood.....
Also the book's author was a newscaster on a Morning Show out of Birmingham, AL that we watched every morning Mon-Fri when I was a child in Alabama. Loved Fannie Flagg!
Last the book takes place in Missouri; I have lived in Missouri 31 years so I recognize a lot of the towns, etc used in the book.
Overall the book is very entertaining and another great read of Ms. Flagg.
Also the book's author was a newscaster on a Morning Show out of Birmingham, AL that we watched every morning Mon-Fri when I was a child in Alabama. Loved Fannie Flagg!
Last the book takes place in Missouri; I have lived in Missouri 31 years so I recognize a lot of the towns, etc used in the book.
Overall the book is very entertaining and another great read of Ms. Flagg.
From the talented storyteller whose Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe became a beloved bestseller and a successful film comes a sprawling, feel-good novel with an old-fashioned beginning, middle and end. The predominant setting is tiny Elmwood Springs, Mo., and the protagonist is 10-year-old Bobby Smith, an earnest Cub Scout also capable of sneaking earthworms into his big sister's bed. His father is the town pharmacist and his mother is local radio personality Neighbor Dorothy (whom readers will recognize from Flagg's Welcome to the World, Baby Girl!). In 1946, Harry Truman presides over a victorious nation anticipating a happy and prosperous future. During the next several decades, the plot expands to include numerous beguiling characters who interact with the Smith family among them, the Oatman Family Southern Gospel Singers, led by matriarch Minnie, who survive misadventures galore to find fame after an appearance on the Arthur Godfrey show in 1949, the same year Bobby's self-esteem soars when he wins the annual town bubble gum contest. Also on hand are tractor salesman Ham Sparks, who becomes amazingly successful in politics, despite his marriage to overwhelmingly shy Betty Raye Oatman, and well-liked mortician Cecil Figgs, a sponsor of Neighbor Dorothy, who, as a bachelor in the mid-century South, also enjoys a secret life. The effects of changing social mores are handled deftly; historical events as they impact little Elmwood Springs are duly noted, and everything is infused with the good humor and joie de vivre that are Flagg's stock-in-trade.
Good news! Fannies back in town--and the town is among the leading characters in her new novel. Along with Neighbor Dorothy, the lady with the smile in her voice, whose daily radio broadcasts keep us delightfully informed on all the local news, we also meet Bobby, her ten-year-old son, destined to live a thousand lives, most of them in his imagination; Norma and Macky Warren and their ninety-eight-year-old Aunt Elner; the oddly sexy and charismatic Hamm Sparks, who starts off in life as a tractor salesman and ends up selling himself to the whole state and almost the entire country; and the two women who love him as differently as night and day. Then there is Tot Whooten, the beautician whose luck is as bad as her hairdressing skills; Beatrice Woods, the Little Blind Songbird; Cecil Figgs, the Funeral King; and the fabulous Minnie Oatman, lead vocalist of the Oatman Family Gospel Singers.
The time is 1946 until the present. The town is Elmwood Springs, Missouri, right in the middle of the country, in the midst of the mostly joyous transition from war to peace, aiming toward a dizzyingly bright future.
Once again, Fannie Flagg gives us a story of richly human characters, the saving graces of the once-maligned middle classes and small-town life, and the daily contest between laughter and tears. Fannie truly writes from the heartland, and her storytelling is, to quote Time, "utterly irresistible."
The time is 1946 until the present. The town is Elmwood Springs, Missouri, right in the middle of the country, in the midst of the mostly joyous transition from war to peace, aiming toward a dizzyingly bright future.
Once again, Fannie Flagg gives us a story of richly human characters, the saving graces of the once-maligned middle classes and small-town life, and the daily contest between laughter and tears. Fannie truly writes from the heartland, and her storytelling is, to quote Time, "utterly irresistible."
The characters are written in such a way that you can't help but fall in love with them. I couldn't put it down but when I finished it I was sad that there weren't more pages. Fannie Flagg introduces you to the people and time in a way that you feel like you are there and part of the community. It is heartfelt and takes you to a place that helps us understand what is truly important in life.
Great Reading....
WHAT YEAR WAS THIS BOOK PUBLISHED?
This was a good read. I love the characters Fannie Flagg creates.
Haven't read this yet. I inadvertently ended up with two copies of the same book so posting one of them.
