This is a quick read of funny stories by the author. It started out strong, but finished kind of weak. I have read every book by this author and always find one or two parts that make me laugh out loud with this book being no exception. ( )

Ha ha ha...she's so funny, just like me! No, really, I'm not kidding, I'm serious!

***************************************QUOTES*********************************************

"Here's the thing about getting older: when you do & say crazy things, nobody gives much of a shit; it's expected. I've reached the age where I can do and say things that, if I were younger, would land me in the nearest nuthouse doing crayon therapy and weaving dream catchers all day. Because of this, I told Gray over lunch one day, I had made a life-changing and money-saving decision. 'I'm going to plant plastic flowers in my yard'. Her fork clattered to the floor. 'You can't be serious,' she said. 'That's what Crazy Old Ladies Do'."


"If you ever w ant to feel old, just ride an elevator with thirty-five giggling teens wearing their hair in buns of sponge-rubber rollers and saying; 'Shut-up!' a lot to each other. These girls were Mean Girls, just like in the movie. When I asked them to let me off because it was my floor, they eyed me from the top of my velour jogging suit to the bottom and visibly snarled. I was something sticky on the bottom of a Payless shoe. 'Whatever,' they said, nearly in unison."

"And so based on the advice of this albino woman who smoked Salem 100's and peed outdoors, I decided to skip college and leap into newspapering at the age of eighteen. So, no, I don't have a college degree, ans, as much as I'd like to have one, the whole notion of the work associated with it is as appealing as a Wham! comeback. I'll pass on the horror of being the oldest student in a roomful of flat-stomached Ambers and guys cute enough to be on The Hills calling me 'ma'am'".
( )

I was looking for something short and light-hearted when browsing my public library’s audiobook collection and stumbled upon this book. It sounded promisingly funny and the author is described as "Dave Barry with a female point of view.” However, I knew this wasn't really for me when she resorted to flatulence jokes by the end of the first short chapter. Her humor came across less as sarcastic than as, quite frankly, plain old bitchy. Her jokes consist of telling an anecdote in which her picking out granite for her new kitchen is more of a trial than her "former best friend" finding out her husband was having an affair and making comparisons between cancer surgery and kitchen remodeling, removing a dead possum from the house and Abu Ghraib, and hurricanes and unsweetened iced tea (and that's all just in the first few chapters). This kind of humor wasn't for me; I think I'll stick with Dave Barry.

Perhaps the most amusing part of the book for me was a story in which she pokes fun at a teenaged cheerleader's "developing social consciousness" for wanting to "use some of that money to help, like, the Tsunamis" .... and then follows this vignette up with one in which she does her taxes. The irony being that her story about taxes revolves around her trying to get charitable deductions by talking about Hurricane Katrina in the car and volunteering at her own daughter's elementary school! Clearly, that's a person with a well-developed social consciousness.....

Toward the end, the author became more rambling (indeed, the final part is labeled "random thoughts") and the book lost any attempt at cohesiveness -- forget about the book as a whole, even individual chapters become long rants with no real plot. For instance, there’s a chapter entitled "Gay Men Love Me," in which one might expect to hear some humorous story involving misunderstandings between the author and homosexual men or something to the like. Instead, the author writes approximately two lines about how gay men are attracted to her (no reason given why or any evidence of this assertion), then rants about prominent anti-homosexual preachers, and then follows that up with ... a rant about how she hates metrosexuals (does she not see the irony in this juxtaposition?). To wit, "From a perfectly selfish point of view, I'm glad to see the end of the metrosexual man because they always made me feel a little guilty. Their skin was smoother and it irked me to hear them carping about sheets with low thread counts. 'Go change some oil!' I wanted to shriek every time one of them sidled up to me at a picnic and wanted to discuss the latest Oprah book club pick with me. You don't like Nicholas Sparks so don't pretend you do, asshole. In contrast, if gay men want to talk about the best French coffee press or debate whether tilapia is the new monkfish, I'm all in. But metrosexuals? What is that?" Charming. I mean, calling someone an asshole for liking a particular author = funny, right? She ends this chapter with a thankful sigh that metrosexuals are "stopped" as she puts it, which is evidenced by the "Hooters-style barbershops ... [that] provide an opportunity for manly bonding in a comfortable way. In other words, not quite sharing ranch-hand duties in a pup tent at Brokeback Mountain but more in a 'Who, check out the calzones on Misty Sue' kind of way." Is this really supposed to be humorous? Because I'm missing something then.

As the above excerpts hint at, this author has a potty mouth. Not that I'm a total prude, but I do dislike when comedians think they need to shove a curse word into at least every other sentence or else somehow they won't be funny. However, I think I found it more irritating that she constantly referred to her spouse and child as "hubby" and "Precious" or "Princess," respectively. I don't know why, but it just irked me to hear her refuse to use their actual names. (If it were a privacy thing, I would understand, but she does occasionally mention at least her daughter's real name so that's not the issue. Again, I think it's meant to be funny, but I'm just not getting it.)

As you may be able to tell from what I've said above, this book became increasingly less funny to me as it went on. Still, there were some parts that had me smiling (not laughing, mind you) and it did fit my criteria of light and quick. In addition, the audio book is narrated by author Rivenbark herself, and she has great comic timing and does excellent impressions. I also think the humor does shine through a little more by hearing the words from her own mouth rather than reading them cold off a piece of paper. But in the end, you won't find me recommending this book if your taste in humor is anything like mine. ( )

A humourous collection of stories about southern living. ( )

What a fun book! Laugh out loud funny!
I thoroughly enjoyed this book I needed a light funny read and I sure got it with this one. Belle Weather is a tell it like it is southern gal who minces no words. My favorite line from this book has to be

“Just because the cat had kittens in the oven don’t make them biscuits”

And a chapter about her daughter reading Harry Potter instead of Nancy Drew called- Harry Potter Bitch Slaps Nancy Drew.

I will definitely be finding the rest of Celia Rivenbark’s books.
If you like southern humor fiction you’ll enjoy this one! ( )