Helpful Score: 8
Cold Sassy Tree starts out fine. The two main characters Rucker Blakeslee and his new bride, Love Simpson, are very entertaining. Some of the other characters are a bit unlikeable. In the middle, the book seems to wander without direction. If you can make it to about page 325, the story takes some interesting turns and has a satisfying end.
I never would have read this book had someone not given it to me. It's a story about a family in the early 1900s written through the eyes of a young man. Very good! Some history too.
Helpful Score: 3
This is an exceptional book. Not a run-of-the-mill churned out cute little story for women. I don't think the review given when you click on the cover does it justice. It IS a tearjerker, however. Its a love story between an old widower and a young woman, told through the eyes of the man's grandson. All the characters are well written. It's also about small town life and family relationships.
Helpful Score: 2
A wonderful, heartwarming story about the changes in a family and their small Georgia town when their recently widowed grandfather marries a Yankee woman half his age. You won't want the book to end!
Helpful Score: 2
Humorous novel about a boy growing up in a small Southern town early in the 20th century. Good characterizations and a fun read.
Once you get into this book you will literally start to think in a dialect and accent. I found it charming and heartwarming. The characters each had personalities and weaknesses I think everyone can relate to in one way or another. I found this book a long time past when it had been on my list of required reading for a class (no...i didn't read it then!) and was so glad I did. I have begged friends to read it just to make sure I wasn't crazy, and they assured me that,although my faculties are still in question, it is a great book. The sequal did not measure up, sadly Ms Burns passed away before finishing and though dissapointed that I could not get more of those characters and the setting, it is still a book I enjoy picking up and re-reading.
Helpful Score: 2
Laughed out loud at this one! You can't help but fall in love with the characters. I was disappointed when I had to turn the last page. I wanted to know what happened next! A lovely, lovely book, particularly if you have a soft spot for the south.
Helpful Score: 1
Funny and yet touching.
Helpful Score: 1
I loved "Cold Sassy Tree." It ranks with the literary giants. The writing skill is excellent and the story is fascinating from chapter to chapter. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in an enjoyable journey through the foibles of humankind.
Helpful Score: 1
A glimpse of life in a small Georgia town, at the turn of the last century. A delightful read, from the first page to the last! Colorful characters, and a story full of humor and poignant moments.
Helpful Score: 1
A story of a small town in the early 1900's and all the exciting events that happen to the people living there.
Helpful Score: 1
A good book with old time characters, it was also made into a Hallmark movie, but the book is well worth reading.
In 1906 an older widower elopes suddenly three weeks after the death of his wife, and to make matters even more interesting, his new wife is half his age. This sets their small town to life.
Very much worth reading! Excellent story!
One of the best books about the small town South I have ever read. I spent a number of years in a very small town in Florida and cherish the friends and time I spent there. Olive Burns has so accurately captured the language used by the "Crackers" I knew and loved that I found myself reading the book out loud to myself just so I could enjoy hearing the words and the expressions I heard back in the 30's as a child. It is a true shame that Ms. Burns did not live long enough to give us more of her wonderful stories. A wonderful book. A treasure about small town life. Genny Sikes
Hard to start but worth the wait
One of my most favorite books
Southern Life in the early 1900's as seen through the eyes of a teenage boy. Full of wonderful characters - each developed in such a way as to really know them, like them, hate them or love them.
I love this book!
A beautifully written book full of rich substance. I give it 5 stars. I was hooked by the end of the first chapter when Grandpa Blakeslee announces to his family, only 3 weeks after the death of his wife, that he plans to marry 33 year old Miss Love Simpson. Is it for love, sex, convenience, cooking & cleaning, &/or companionship?
Burns makes these characters, who live in a small, religious, southern town in the early 1900s, come alive. It tells the story of the Georgia town Cold Sassy Tree, its inhabitants, and one particular family. The story centers around the transformation of 59 year old Grandpa Blakeslee and his 14 year old grandson Will Tweedy. It examines coming of age, love & death, spirituality and religious ideas and prejudices, morals and mores, and modernization.
I highly recommend this book!
A beautifully written book full of rich substance. I give it 5 stars. I was hooked by the end of the first chapter when Grandpa Blakeslee announces to his family, only 3 weeks after the death of his wife, that he plans to marry 33 year old Miss Love Simpson. Is it for love, sex, convenience, cooking & cleaning, &/or companionship?
Burns makes these characters, who live in a small, religious, southern town in the early 1900s, come alive. It tells the story of the Georgia town Cold Sassy Tree, its inhabitants, and one particular family. The story centers around the transformation of 59 year old Grandpa Blakeslee and his 14 year old grandson Will Tweedy. It examines coming of age, love & death, spirituality and religious ideas and prejudices, morals and mores, and modernization.
I highly recommend this book!
One of my all time favorite books. I have this on audio and the reader's voice makes this book a delight to listen to.
Abridged audiobook on 2 cassettes (180 minutes). Beautifully read by actor Richard Thomas ("The Waltons").
This is an outstanding book. I've read it several times. Great story.
I did not like the way this book was written using Southern English. I thought the author lacked a purpose or direction with the story. I enjoyed the point of view of the 15 y.o. boy.
Hands down one of my absolute favorites. This story of a boy and his family - most especially his grandpa - is unforgettable.
One of my favorite books. It is sweet, funny, and sad. I highly recommend it.
In the spirit of "Fried Green Tomatoes". A good,fun read.
The lives of residents of a small Georgia town. When the prominent store owner marries his store clerk 3 weeks after his wife dies the town people are shocked. This is a great adventure story of life in a small town where everyone knows everyones business.I couldnt put it down and hated to come to the end. Great Book!!!!
This book is one of the best I've ever read! It's so well written. The characters feel like you know them personally.
Wonderful story about growing up in the South.
The South and a family in a great read
I really enjoyed this book about small town southern life.
A very good story of the old south and people who werent afraid to live who they were instead of by others rules.
A delightful book!
Hilarious and heartwarming book about a recent widower (three weeks) who mariies a woman half his age--and a YANKEE. Great southern fiction
Loved this book about life in a simpler time, set in rural Georgia basically between a boy and his grandfather. An excellent story.
Told through the eyes of a young boy this was a very enjoyable book about a family in Cold Sassy, Georgia. The stories reminded me so much of stories I'm heard my parents tell about growing up in the south and these stories were apparently based on stories told my the author's father. Everyone won't like it because of the southern language (we do have a way with words) but I thought it was delightful. :)
Loved it!
Great read!
Fun and entertain read. Age has nothing to do with love.
good book great ending
My 2nd copy of one of my favorites! A touching story of the relationship of a boy with his family - espec. his grandpa. I recommend this book to every book lover I know.
Cold Sassy, Georgia, had never been a whirlpool of excitement. If the preacher's wife's petticoat showed, the ladies could make the talk last a week. But on July 5, 1906, things took a scandalous turn. That was the day E. rucker Blakeslee, proprietor of the general store and barely three weeks a widower, eloped with Miss Love Simpson-a woman half his age and, worse yet, a Yankee! On that day Will Tweedy's adventures began and an unimpeachably pious, deliciously irreverent town came to life.
Cold Sassy, Georgia, had never been a whirlpool of excitement. If the preacher's wife's petticoat showed, the ladies could make the talk last a week. But on July 5, 1906, things took a scandalous turn. That was the day E. Rucker Blakeslee, proprietor of the general store and barely three weeks a widower, eloped with Miss Love Simpson--a woman half his age and worse yet, a Yankee! On that day Will Tweedy's adventures began and an unimpeachable pious, deliciously irreverent town came to life.
Hated to see this one end....
Hated to see this one end....
"A book about love and death both funny and deeply touching" San Francisco Chronicle
This is a classic novel. Everyone should read this book.
The one thing you can depend on in Cold Sassy, Georgia, is that word gets around - fast. When Grandpa E. Rucker Blakeslee announces one July morning in 1906 that he's aiming to marry the young and freckledy milliner, Miss Love Simpson - a bare three weeks after Granny Blakeslee has gone to her reward - the news is served up all over town with that afternoon's dinner. And young Will Tweedy suddenly finds himself eyewitness to a major scandal. Boggled by the sheer audacity of it all, and not a little jealous of his grandpa's new wife, Will nevertheless approves of this May-December match and follows its progress with just a smidgen of youthful prurience. As the newlyweds' chaperone, conspirator, and confidant, Will is privy to his one-armed, renegade grandfather's second adolescence; meanwhile, he does some growing up of his own. He gets run over by a train and lives to tell about it; he kisses his first girl, and survives that too. Olive Ann Burns has given us a timeless, funny, resplendent novel - about a romance that rocks an entire town, about a boy's passage through the momentous but elusive year when childhood melts into adolescence, and about just how people lived and died in a small Southern town at the turn of the century. Inhabited by characters who are wise and loony, unimpeachably pious and deliciously irreverent, Cold Sassy, Georgia, is the perfect setting for the debut of a storyteller of rare brio, exuberance, and style.
This is a very good book. It reminds me of a time when I was a child. Very descriptive narrative of life in the South.
It has been so many years since I read this book, I can't give you a review. I enjoyed it enough that I kept it, thinking I would reread it soeday.
This was a pleasant surprise. Another southern lit book w/ great characters.
If the preacher's wife's petticoat showed, the ladies would make the talk last a week. But on July 5, 1906, things took a scandalous turn. That was the day E. Rucker Blakeslee, proprietor of the general store and barely three weeks a widower, eloped with Miss Love Simpson - a woman half his age and, worse yet, a Yankee! On that day, fourteen year old Will Tweedy's adventures began and an unimpeachably pious, deliciously irreverent town came to life.
If the preacher's wife's petticoat showed, the ladies would make the talk last a week. But on July 5, 1906 things took a scandalous turn. That was the day E. Rucker Blakeslee, proprietor of the general store and barely three weeks a widower, eloped with Miss Love Simpson--a woman half his age and, worse yet, a Yankee! On that day, fourteen year old Will Tweedy's adventures began and an unimpeachably pious, deliciusly irreverent town came to life.
