I loved this book...except for the moments I hated it.This review is for the audiobook version. The narrator did a fantastic job on everything except for the hero's voice. It was awful. It sounded like some eighty year old British guy...no exaggeration. It was terrible So unsexy that it really ruined the romance aspect for me. Oddly enough, she did a fantastic job at all of the rest of the voices. Inflection and accents and everything were just spot on. Aside from narration, this book was one of SEP's that I wasn't sure about reading. Well...I knew I would read it eventually. It is Susan Elizabeth Phillips, after all. But the premise is very different, and the heroine was not someone I was at all sure that I could like. I was wrong. She ended up being the best part about this book. It was all the other grown up twelve year olds that bothered me. The big deal of the story is that the heroine, Sugar Beth Carey, was the poor little rich girl back in high school. No one knew about the "poor little" part, however. Because, like most bullies, Sugar was hiding behind a false bravado of fantastic clothes and masses of limp followers. The person she tortured most of all? Her father's illegitimate daughter. The one he really loved, the one he spent time with, the one he treated as a father should treat a daughter...and the one he left his vast fortune and all of his earthly treasures.Sugar Beth is returning home now, after three marriages...two of which failed miserably and one that broke her heart. But her hometown, and especially the man who is now living in her childhood home, want nothing more than to put Sugar in her place....again, and again, and again.After the initial introduction and setup for this story were in place, it really settled into a classic SEP feeling. Sugar Beth turned my heart fairly quickly. High school was a long time ago, and people forgive and forget. Or they should. But this town doesn't, and they treat Sugar Beth horribly. I'm talking humiliating her at every chance they get, bringing her as low as she's ever been and then forcing her lower. It's a combined effort and not one single person is on her side. Not even the hero, who admittedly was one of the people Sugar tormented. But come on...that was fifteen years ago!He's an English professor who fell in love with the south and used to teach Sugar Beth in high school until she told a lie to save her own ass but got him fired. In revenge, he wrote a book, made it big, moved back to town and bought her childhood home. And the revenge continues.I kept picturing Sugar Beth as a cross between Dolly Parton and Miranda Lambert. Trashy-southern and cute as hell.And while I'd like to picture Colin as this guy:what I really pictured was this guy:Still, this was a feast for my prejudiced mind. And a wonderful testament to the strength and resiliency and sheer heart of this wonderful woman. If I take one thing from reading this it's that what people show you...be they bully, nice guy, or somewhere in between...is rarely what the truth is. Most people put on a show in public, but in private, they are vastly different. Sugar Beth improved with age, and it took a town of assholes a long time to see what a wonderful, giving, repentant woman she really was.
First: I listened to this as an audiobook, and I’m going to evaluate the book separately from the reading.The book is, for my money, probably going to be my favorite Susan Elizabeth Phillips. It’s funny and sweet, but it’s also quite thoughtful. It’s a twist on Cinderella and her stepsister — because you don’t know which one is which, and by the end, you’re still debating. In a good way. Can they both be Cinderella, with dashes of stepsister? Pretty much, because the main female characters (Sugar Beth, the former high school beauty queen of Parrish, Mississippi, now down on her luck) and Winifred (her half sister by her father’s open relationship to another woman) are complex in the way they see themselves, each other, and the world. In the end I liked Sugar Beth the best, because she comes a long way, learns a lot, but doesn’t lose her edge.The novel is very atmospheric, full of southern smells and sights and sounds (I’ll get to more about this in a minute) and does a great job of capturing the good and bad of small town life. I highly recommend it for anybody who likes a well done love story. Unless you’ve got a lot of biased, preconceived notions about romance, you should read this book.Now about the audio. The reader is Kate Flemming, and she knows her way around a variety of southern accents. Flemming reads Sugar Beth with just the right amount of vinegar; I don’t think I would have liked Sugar Beth quite so much if I had been reading rather than listening. Really.The problem is Flemming’s reading of Colin Byrne, the main male character. A successful author, once Sugar Beth’s reviled high school English teacher — she got him fired by telling a lie after he proved that a man could be immune to her charms. Colin is supposed to be the son of an Irish mason, a boy with ambition who managed to get an education beyond his social standing and pulled himself up by the proverbial bootstraps. I don’t believe there’s ever a mention of where he went to university, but it’s clear that he worked for what he’s got, and re-cast himself. And then Kate Flemming goes and reads him with an outdated posh upper class accent.There are lots of examples of current day upper-class English accents out there. Colin Firth in What a Girl Wants jumps to mind, along with a dozen other examples from modern movies. But this Colin Byrne talks like an overdone Basil Rathbone circa 1930, all glottal creak (which is, in fact, a technical term) and plummy vowels. I kept thinking it was a joke, that there would be some explanation in the story of why he affected such an outlandish accent, but nope. It was so overdone it almost stopped me from listening to the book, but the story pulled me along and I learned to ignore it. I think I would have liked the character Colin Byrne a lot more if he hadn’t sounded like such a dweeb of a throwback.Please note that I do have some grounds for making such judgments — my husband is a Brit with the kind of educational background that Colin Byrne is supposed to have. I played a bit of the audiobook for him so he could hear the character, and he burst into laughter.But. In the end Flemming does such a great job with the other characters, I have to give the audiobook a pass.
What do You think about Ain't She Sweet (2015)?
I need to sit down properly and write the review for this one.Not that I'm not sitting or anything...you get my point. :PFirst things first...Susan Elizabeth Philips...my humble request to you..please write novels like this a little more than often..No,really. Please.So we come to Ain't She Sweet...Wow...I mean,huh...wowNot at all what I'd been expecting..so this book has been a real surprise to me.A surprise that I liked. A lot.This is a story about a bitch who has left hurt a lot of people in her wake...And turns out she isn't a bitch after all.Nice.Sugar Beth, Colin and of course, our beloved Gordon(the dog is born to be a star,people..)are the stars of this novel.I'm a sucker for sarcasm,and this author is the Queen of Sarcasm Underworld.She made me laugh almost with every of her conversation...not one with exception.Please do not get the idea that this book does not have content. No.Ain't She Sweet deals with a really sensitive topic that might touch a lot of readers but that's done in a light of sarcasm(which,as aforementioned, I have a weakness for),sass, bantering, bickering and not-so-subtle love.The story weaves around a small town and how lives of other people and gossip is a source of entertainment for some people and how people are affected by some of it...The book never bores you,never drags on unnecessary parts nor does it stretch on parts of obstinacy of protagonists. This novel will bring out some genuine laughs out of you more than once and win your heart by its innocence and originality in others...Not enough praise for the book can I put in words...but would recommend it to people who would like a good read with content in it and who have a taste for sarcasm.
—Snigdha Prakash
The thing about this novel is that you will learn to love the main character by the end. It's really a great story. And the best part of the plot is that there are no misunderstandings. The reason I liked this book so much was because the heroine is going through the worst phases of her life and she still manages to hold her head up high and get through with it without showing her weaknesses and trying to use that as a reason to absolve her previous sins against the people she did wrong to in the past. I am a complete sucker for these tough ass heroines who at the end of the day still do need a shoulder to cry on without openly publicizing it! Sugar Beth was a great heroine. But the whole town hating her was a bit ridiculous because come on, it was 15 years ago. I also loved the romance and the hilarious conversations between Sugar Beth & Colin.
—Elaine
I once heard another author say they struggled for years to read this Susan Elizabeth Phillips book because they couldn’t imagine enjoying a book about a heroine named Sugar Beth. I know how they feel! Every time I picked it up I thought, mmm, maybe later...Oh my god. Really!!! This is one of those rare books that I spent the entire time thinking I WISH I’D WRITTEN THIS!!! This with a heroine who was the most popular girl in town, stepping on anyone who got in her path along the way, who now down on her luck has to return home. And a hero so foppish he at first appears in a smoking jacket and slippers! I tell you this because I do not want you to be put off by these opening pictures. As this book is magnificent. The dialogue is biting. The back stories and character revelation unique, deep, heartbreaking, real and juicy. The hero and heroine are nothing short of fantastic. So strong. So stubborn. So well matched.AIN'T SHE SWEET by Susan Elizabeth Phillips is funny, smart, touching, raw and wonderful. BUY IT TODAY!!!Next I’m reading... SWEPT OFF HER STILETTOS by Fiona Harper. What are you reading? Which book MUST I read this year?
—Ally Blake
