I am completely in agreement with Beckyh, the writing was almost amateur. The attempt at dialect was so inconsistent that I hold the editors accountable. I love southern literature and this genre is right up my alley so I was excited to read this but in the end I was extremely disappointed. Often characters would have epiphanies way beyond their year, just to tie a storyline up.. A friend saw this on my nightstand and wanted a good book but I gave her something else instead. To use the NYT Sunday magazine word I thought it was just "meh"