Fannie Flagg

"Spanning decades, generations, and America in the 1940s and today, The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion is a fun-loving mystery about an Alabama woman today, and five women who in 1943 worked in a Phillips 66 gas station, during the WWII years. Like Fannie Flagg's classic Fried Green Tomatoes, this is a riveting, fun story of two families, set in present day America and during World War II, filled to the brim with Flagg's trademark funny voice and storytelling magic"--

a novel

The all-girl filling station's last reunion

nice book but as usual with Fannie Flagg *very* dumbed down.

Maggie Gordon

General fiction is not usually my cup of tea, but Fannie Flagg's "Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe" is easily in my top ten list of books, so I decided it was about time to try another one of her works. Even though the main character is a 60 year old housewife who spends the entire book figuring herself out and battling no robots, I loved it!

Like Fried Tomatoes, The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion is about one women's journey to find self-fulfilment and identity, helped along by the lessons of the past. In this book, Sookie is rendered shell shocked when she finds out that she was adopted. Her adopted mother was obsessed with lineage and family pride, so where does that leave poor Sookie, a woman who already feels as if she did little with her life? As she works through her issues, she meets up with her birth family and learns about their powerful past as women pilots during World War II. Thus, this book is quite a feminist story of the abilities of women to do amazing things even when the world around them wants them to be something less extraordinary. All in all, both stories are about survival and finding connections and love where it matters most to the individual. Sookie's story speaks to how we must all find our own meaning and accomplishment in our actions, and how we can propel ourselves forward by learning from and working with those around us. It's also a very light hearted, but impacting book that will make you laugh.

Maria

про фэнни флэгг все считают, что у нее есть "жареные зеленые помидоры" и всё остальное. и это правда, в целом - "помидоры" стоят в сторонке из-за социальных тем, которых особо нет в книжках про американский юг и его экстравагантных жителей

и вот "девушки с автозаправки" тоже, наверное, были бы обычным чириканьем, если бы не социальный мотив, да какой - о женщинах-пилотах во вторую мировую. со всеми вот этими милыми штуками - "когда мы были нужны, нас посадили за штурвалы бомбардировщиков, а как война кончилась, велели возвращаться на кухню"

есть несколько тем, по которым я всегда испытываю бурю эмоций - авиация, семья и борьба женщин за права среди них, и все они есть в этой книге, поэтому поплакала. при этом все равно это немного мелодрама, так что если кто от мыслей о самолетах не плачет, то наверное скажет "ачотакова"

Amber Laha

This book drove me insane, or rather Sookie drove me insane. Sookie is so annoying with her "everytime-i-get-bad-news-it-is-only-right-I-faint" act and that whole "invention" at the end? I am pretty sure that is something people have figured out. 

The book is funny, I must say. I was laughing out loud and sometimes it was laughing AT her and not laughing at the joke, kind of thing, so it wasn't always positive. But I kept going back and forth if Flagg did that on purpose or not. I really felt that the story had this slow build up with it all leading up to her meeting her birth mother(there is a twist that we don't see coming and that made me happy because it didn't make the book even less worthwhile), and I was enjoying reading about the birth mother and then, all of sudden, we are at the end. I felt that it was pretty abrupt and rushed. I didn't care for that and felt she could have gone further with Fritzi's story. 

With all the character development that you'd think you'd get, I felt that lacked especially with Earle, Sookie's husband. He was so cardboard and flat. I didn't care that he felt like he was a tool to get Sookie to do something or to be support. I found Sookie super annoying, so I found myself skipping her parts and enjoying Fritzi's. This really is a disappointment because it is not what I expected from Fannie Flagg. I know people complained about Lenore, but I don't think you were suppose to really like her and she is who she is because of her past so I was able to look past her inflated ego. 

Overall, I really enjoyed the birth mother's story, but could not stand Sookie's story. If she had written the book all about Fritzi, I'd have loved every moment of this book. The writing did leave something to be desired, especially in character development and pacing. So the book gets:

3 stars.

The hilarious and heartwarming new novel from the author of Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe Wisconsin, 1941 – With all the men off to war, Fritzi and her sisters must learn men’s work and the All-Girl Filling Station is born, complete with neat little caps, short skirts, and roller-skates. Their peace doesn’t last long though: skilled women are needed to fly planes for the war effort... Alabama, 2005 – Mrs Sookie Earle has just married off the last of her daughters and is looking forward to putting her feet up. But then one day a package arrives. Its contents knock Sookie sideways, propelling her back to the 1940s, and four irrepressible sisters whose wartime adventures force them to reimagine who they are, and what they are capable of. ‘Flagg is a writer of great warmth and wisdom... A richly imagined family saga’ The Times ‘Wonderful... A warm, funny riff on family and identity' Daily Mail

The all-girl filling station's last reunion a novel

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