| Little Altars Everywhere: CD | 
 enlarge | Creator: Rebecca Wells
Publisher: HarperAudio
Category: Book
List Price: $22.00
Buy New: $1.88
You Save: $20.12 (91%)
Buy New/Used/Collectible from $1.55
Avg. Customer Rating:   (243 reviews)
Sales Rank: 906955
Format: Abridged, Audiobook
Media: Audio CD
Number Of Items: 3
Pages: 182
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 5.7 x 5 x 1
ISBN: 0694521221
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780694521227
ASIN: 0694521221
Publication Date: June 1, 1999
Release Date: May 5, 1999
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com Review
"It can wear you to a nub, trying to be a popular person and a good Catholic all at the same time." So says Sidda, one of the characters inhabiting Little Altars Everywhere. Author Rebecca Wells uses her considerable acting talent to perform this abridgment, adding even more spark to her already lively characters. Everyone--Shep, Vivi, Willetta, and the rest--is given a distinct voice, and Wells plays each of them to the hilt. More like a recording of a one-woman show than a mere reading, Altars is an excellent example of how entertaining audiobooks can be. (Running time: 3 hours, 2 cassettes) --C.B. Delaney
Product Description
Don't miss Little Altars Everywhere, the New York Times bestselling companion novel that introduces the Ya–Yas and is also a basis for the film.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 238 more reviews...
 Disgusting and Depressing April 23, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I along with many others read Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood first. I LOVED it!!! It was one of those books I didn't want to end! I was elated when I found Little Altars everywhere at my local thrift store. I can't believe the diffence between the two!
I was caught off guard immediatley with the lesbian chapter. I had no idea that's where R. Wells was taking it. I had to read and re-read where the mother molests Little Shep because I was sure I was taking it the wrong way. I felt sympathy for Vivi in DSYYS, but not after this. If you want my opinion, read Divine Secrets of the YaYa Sisterhood and forget about Little Altars Everywhere. It's trash, plain and simple!
 Emotional Roller Coaster September 26, 2007
This book was fabulous - not quite as groundbreaking as the "Divine Secrets.." but still fabulous nonetheless. It made me smile, it made me think, and it made me cry - all the things a good book should do and more. Buy it - read it! Enjoy.
A Strongly Written Book About Growing Up July 26, 2007
This isn't *really* my kind of book - it reminded me eerily of something like Margaret Laurence's "A Bird In The House", given it is a collection of interwoven short stories told from the perspectives of different members of a small-town Louisiana family, most notably from the character of Siddalee.
So why am I giving it four stars? Well there wasn't anything I didn't like about it. I found the prose easy to get through and imaginative. The stories for the most part were captivating and enchanting. The characters were well developed and familiar despite our polar opposite lives. The plot moved enough from section to section to keep me interested. I can't justfiy giving it a lower mark just because it's not my preferred style (ie: novel over short stories) or preferred subject matter (ie: modern day as opposed to the past).
The stories revolve around two points in the character's lives - their childhoods in the 1960's and their relatively young adulthood in the early 1990's. Vivi is their eccentric, perhaps dangerously so, mother who also features in the ya ya sisterhood book. Interestingly enough this book was written before (and publicized after) the ya ya sisterhood - yet there are frequent mentions of the ya ya's and some dark secret they share and so on...so I'm guessing that book was simultaneously in the works as this one. Big Shep is Vivi's husband, a working class man who makes a few poor choices that make him forget how to love.
Their children include the eldest daughter Siddalee, who is probably the most identifiable as the main character in the book. Sidda goes through several phases of independence/autonomy and relying on her family for guidance. Her younger brother Lil Shep doesn't feature much in the book other than his desire to be freed from the nasty secrets his family is keeping. I can't remember the next siblings name, I think it's Lulu, who stars in my favourite story in the book about petty theives and liars. Finally there is Baylor, the youngest, who lives in a dream both as a child and an adult.
Overall this is a nice, slow read...it's enjoyable to drink up on lazy summer days in bits and pieces, and very much personifies the southern climate it describes.
 The last chapter is worth the entire book April 1, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This was the hardest read in the Ya-Ya series. I didn't always like it. It felt disjointed and uneven and some chapters (they were like vignettes, strung together) I started and then just skimmed or left unread.
The final chapter, however - was worth the entire experience. I wish we could have heard from this voice, the adult voice of Siddalee, through the entire thing. Baylor, yeah - he was good, too. There were no other Ya-Ya's (except in passing, where were "the gang" we love so much in Divine Secrets and Ya-Ya's in Bloom?). This book, the prequel to the rest was mostly Vivi's family.
I was reading someplace, maybe it was here, readers were upset about a revelation that takes place in this book. I guess I am weird in that I would rather have the characters in the books I read be flawed, be human.
Vivi is messed up. Ya-Ya readers know that. Her parents were messed up, her children are messed up albeit differently. "Little Altars" begins with Sidda as a pissed-off-on-the-edge-of-puberty girl scout and ends with Sidda as a late 30's woman, the woman who we see several years later narrating half of Divine Secrets.
I don't expect my "heroines" to be wind up toys or robots or flawless automatons. I would rather they be real.
And this volume, in my estimation, doesn't do it.
I think it was written first. But that last chapter. Oh my, that last chapter. I sat at my kitchen table sobbing and my daughter Katherine, from the living room said, "Mommy? Are you ok?" I hadn't realized I was so loud!
Read the last chapter. Pick it up at the bookstore and read it.
Here is one group of sentences as a preview for you:
"As far as I'm concerned, if you could bottle that smell, all the companies that make Xanax, Prozac and Valium would be out of business. You could just open the bottle and smell Willetta and never feel panicked or depressed again."
Love it.
Severely mis-lead December 30, 2006
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I first read Divine Secrets... and then read this book, and very much felt lied to by the author. In the second book the mother is basically lovable, well almost, but flawed. Then I went and read the first book Little Altars Everywhere and read that the mother is sexually abusing her children. This did not come up in Divine Secrets at all and to me seems like a bunch of bull crap. I know that Divine Secrets is mostly from the daughters point of view and that the mother was sexually abusing her sons, but evenstill. On its own it would be a much better book.
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