More humor from Jill Conner Browne, THE Boss Queen. She's a talented humorist, and this is a fun read. ( )

As always Jill Connor Browne was a hoot.

She does say this is fiction, but I'll tell you it does read true to life for most women. There are moments of hilarity, sadness, rebellion, and saving grace.

I laughed for most of the book, then there were times I was "How could she be so stoopid", there were times I teared up....

There are some pretty good recipes at the end, however I do NOT eat "Splenda" (read poison) and I substitute Real Organic Sugar. ( )

About all I can say is, that those were a few hours of my life I will never get back. I'm really not big on these Southern women "empowerment" books, or whatever it is they are supposed to be. This was depressing as all get out. Sad, selfish, short-sighted little lives, which were, quite honestly, dull. I guess the whole spirit of this book can be summed up by the club's motto, "HERE'S to US!" "And FUCK everybody else!" Yeah, not my kind of people. ( )

A novel of girls growing up as The Sweet Potato Queens. I didn't like it as well as the stories about the REAL Sweet Potato Queens. Jill Connor-Browne's previous books have been laugh-out-loud funny. This one felt like a repeat, but not as much fun. Advice? Go get one of her non-fiction books. ( )

Jill Conner Browne writes a fictional account of how the Sweet Potato Queens came into being and how they truly became queens through some terrible decisions and heartbreak.

I absolutely loved the first chapter of this book. It was sheer perfection I tell you. It starts when the queens are in high school and haven't really figured out that they're queens yet. They are always being looked down upon by the high school beauty queen, a bitch if ever there was one. I was shrieking with laughter and doing a corny little fist pump all alone in my car by the time the chapter ended. "You tell her, Queens!" I was repeating the last few sentences of that chapter to anyone who would listen for days, complete with my best Southern drawl.

That was by far my favorite part. The Queens seem determined to make every mistake it is possible to make when it comes to love. There were still definitely some funny parts, but I had gotten so attached to these characters in that first chapter that I just wanted everything to go right for them. But I think Browne's ultimate message is that we are all Queens, no matter what horrendously bad decision we have made in our lives. We just need to pick ourselves back up, dust off our crowns, and start singing "Tiny Bubbles" again.

I am torn between recommending the print or audio versions. I listened to the audio, read by Browne herself, and had a blast listening to her. I am definitely a Southern girl, but up here in the Southern Appalachians, we have more of a twang, and Browne definitely has a drawl. I could listen to her talk all day, I swear. No matter the slight differences in accents, I think that Southerners all have a similar rhythm to our storytelling, so listening to her read this book just felt deeply right.

On the other hand, there were so many quotes I wanted to mark, but there was no way for me to do that! Maybe I'll check the print book out of the library and look for the best bits. One that I can sort of remember is something like, "She was letting that word fly. You know, the one we called the firetruck word back then because it began and ended in the same letters."

For a laugh-out-loud, ultimately feel-good book, go ahead and pick this up in whatever format tickles your fancy. It might not have quite lived up to the high expectations I had after the first chapter, but it is definitely a girl-power book, and we all need to read those every once in a while. ( )