Book Review: I Still Dream About You by Fannie Flagg
I Still Dream About You by Fannie Flagg
Publisher: Random House
First released in 2010
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
Meet Maggie Fortenberry, a still beautiful former Miss Alabama. To others, Maggie’s life seems practically perfect—she’s lovely, charming, and a successful agent at Red Mountain Realty. Still, Maggie can’t help but wonder how she wound up living a life so different from the one she dreamed of as a child. But just when things seem completely hopeless, and the secrets of Maggie’s past drive her to a radical plan to solve it all, Maggie discovers, quite by accident, that everybody, it seems, has at least one little secret.
Let me start off by saying I love Southern fiction and I especially love Fannie Flagg. She’s been one of my favorite authors for a long time. I think that’s probably why I was so disappointed with I Still Dream About You. It doesn’t have nearly the depth or charm of Flagg’s other novels. It does have some quirky characters like Flagg’s other books. Hazel Whisenknott was my favorite. She was a little person full of spunk and optimism. I like that she was a little person but that it wasn’t the focus of her character’s storyline. I’m guessing there aren’t many books where one of the characters just happens to be a little person.
Maggie plans to commit suicide and has a detailed plan of what it will entail. Then her friend invites her to see the whirling dervishes later that week. She can’t say no to that so she has to put her plans off until that’s over with. After that, things just keep coming up and she keeps putting it off. I can appreciate dark humor but even so, I didn’t think Maggie had enough reasons to commit suicide. The problem was her character wasn’t developed enough. And her arch rival Babs was an over the top caricature of an evil person. If she was a man, she would have had a mustache she could twirl!
This review sounds like I didn’t enjoy the book. I actually did but it didn’t live up to my expectations for a Fannie Flagg novel. If I didn’t have those expectations going in, I think I would have liked it better. It is a quick, light read and could be a good beach book – just keep your expectations in check.
Her latest book, The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion (released in 2013) has gotten better reviews than this one so I’m hopeful that this book was an anomaly. I’ll let you know – stay tuned!
Reviews of other Fannie Flagg books (I read several more pre-blog):
A Redbird Christmas
