The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder by Rebecca Wells

Rebecca Wells is, perhaps, best known for The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, which was made into a movie starring Ashley Judd.

The Crowing Glory of Calla Lily Ponder is Wells' latest novel. It follows the life of Calla Lilly Ponder, a girl born in the small, rural town of La Luna, Louisiana. Calla Lily is followed from her adolescence, through her teen and college years and ends around her thirtieth birthday.  It documents her relationships, her struggles and her career choices.

This book was nowhere near how good Ya-Ya Sisterhood was, because, mostly, the cast of characters was forgettable, including the book's namesake. They weren't sassy or fun. They were flat and two dimensional and utterly boring. The only thing that I liked about the characters was that Calla Lily was all heart and earnest, but even that got boring, frustrating and tenuous at times. There has to be more to someone than their heart right?! The story was utterly predictable and the writing was just plain awful in parts. The dialog seemed to drag.  That being said, I did appreciate how Wells developed the relationships between the women in her novel - that seems to be her strongest skill. And the skill showed here - it was the only grace in this novel.

This is a book that Wells fans should skip.