A prequel to the Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood, this novel is a portrait of Siddalee Walker's childhood upbringing in a dysfunctional family. The novel is told from multiple different perspectives, including Sidda, her father, sister, brothers, and hired help. Rebecca Wells is a great story-teller for sure, and it was easy for me to slip into the emotional world of this novel. Having the novel told from different perspectives was also interesting, as it presented the secrets within the family. That being said, my overall reaction to the novel is pretty negative. I felt like I was vicariously traumatized for no good reason. I can't help but compare this novel to another Wells novel that I just finished, The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder. Difficult, traumatic things happen in that novel, too - but there's also a lot of love and healing. In Little Altars, there's really not any healing to speak of. In fact, seeing the children as adults was even more depressing than seeing them as children. Maybe things will round out in The Divine Secrets. I don't know. As a stand alone, I really wouldn't recommend this book to any of my friends.

One of those books that made me laugh out loud and boo-hoo cry, too. One of my favorites.

Told by all the different voices of this wonderfully witty, funny and troubled southern clan, this was the pre-quel to the Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood. It's a book essentally about relationships. If you fell in love with the Ya Yas like I did, you will appreciate getting to know them better in their younger years and gaining an even better understanding of their undying loyalty. If you appreciated Sidda's dry sarcasm as an adult like I did, then you will enjoy all the little things that contributed to her personalitly as she was growing up--everything from embarassing colors of nail polish to traumatizing girl scouts to of course dealing with her mentally unstable mother. Despite the title, there are definately some earth-shattering events that balance out all the humor. This is called a companion novel to Divine Secrets, but I read it 2nd and was glad I did. For those of you who don't know, the movie was really of combination of the 2 books, and my enjoyment of the books was not diminished in the least by watching the movie.

When you read blurbs from reviewers of this book ‘hilarious’ is mentioned on numerous occasions. I consider myself to have an excellent sense of humor but I have to think that if someone thinks this book is funny then they need their head examined. Broken into two parts the first told from various POVs from the Walker family during the 60s the mother, father and 4 kids. When the story is told from the kids POV their tales are very matter of fact. Little glimpses of what would be idyllic summers in their childhood but within the glimpses the children are witness to some completely messed up behavior to the point that you are witnessing the makings of PTSD. The house they live in is like a land mine field with a mother that is a narcissist of the worst kind and it is no wonder some of the questionable behavior exhibited by the kids is a reflection of their parents. I don’t know if the author is purposely using the fact that the family are Catholic to add another level of crazy to an already mental case of a woman, she could have used any religion it wouldn’t have changed the fact that the mother is one step from the psych ward. The sad, sad thing about these kids is that they all seem to be incredibly bright and what has to be mentioned is that despite the chaos of home they all seem to have successful careers.

Just when you wonder where this book is going exactly we jump into part two which takes place in the 90s and its still going no-where we learn a little of just how messed up emotionally these kids have become and that belting them wasn’t the only physical abuse that they were exposed to. POVs remain the same with the addition of their maid and farmhand that just tell the story from the outsiders viewing. Abused kids, absentee drunken father and drunken narcissistic mother that considers nothing to be her fault and that everyone is out to get her. The book could have gone on in the same formula for another 100 pages but thankfully we weren’t subjected to it. As for the YAYAs if I read their ‘Divine Secrets’ in this lifetime it’ll be too soon.

Please, I am begging you, skip the YaYas and go straight to this book. This is the money. This is the one you need to read. These are the characters before they became insufferable. These are the characters before the author envisioned them being played in a movie. That's all I can figure since the writing just went off the rails when she got to the YaYas and Siddalee became a dramaturge or something or other and they ended up jumping up and down on the porch trying to catch their tears in jars. I mean, really. This is a spitfire of a book.

When I finished re-reading Divine Secrets, I felt I needed to continue the series. If Divine Secrets was the tip of the iceberg, Little Alters is definitely the larger piece below the water line! There was not a lot of hope in this story as Vivi, Big Shep and the kids recall life at Pecan Grove. By the end, I didn't like Vivi or Big Shep much. It was hard to feel sorry or understand either of them and the choices they made. At some point, baggage is baggage but is it really an excuse for some pretty deplorable acts? Did the other Ya Yas really have no idea what really happened in the Walker household? Did they simply turn a blind eye, did everyone turn a blind eye?? No fun Ya-Ya shenanigans in this book but plenty of heartache, regret, resentment, dysfunction, alcoholism, lack of accountability, and mental instability. I give the author credit for making the characters come to life. The story line is much darker than the Divine Secrets and provides a more in-depth narrative about the Walkers. The reader learns all the dirty secrets and then some! It was a page turner and kept my attention.

Such a sad, awful book. I read and fell in love with DSOTYYS, and couldn't wait to read this. It is graphic and disturbing with scenes of child abuse and molestation by a character you're supposed to love. It is like the author is excusing the behavior by making the character so otherwise loveable and charming. It is truly disturbing and while I still love Divine Secrets, I choose to believe this part of the story does not exist in order to enjoy that book. It feels like the author didn't think she had done a good enough job adding a past to the characters and so she added a bunch of absolutely sickening details that don't even seem possible or real considering what you supposedly know about them. It just seems unreal to expect an audience to believe all of this. Sick. I actually found a copy in a children's section of a used bookstore by mistake and took it to the front desk and told them how disturbing it is. Absolutely NOT for people who enjoyed the Divine Secrets.

This companion piece to Rebecca Wells’ more famous book The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood fills in a lot of the blanks in her life, and why she reacts to her mother the way she does. This is more Sidda’s story than Vivi’s. Siddalee Abbott is the eldest child of Viviane Walker Abbott and Shep Abbott. Her mother always felt as if she had settled. Marriage, children and a life in the country were never really part of her dreams. Both her mother and her father medicated themselves with alcohol and drugs to deal with the disappointments of their lives. The different chapters are told in different voices (Sidda’s, her siblings, her parents, the hired help). This gives a fascinating view of history as told by many people. Alcoholism, guilt, religion and mental illness are all illustrated by the stories of the people. Sidda’s birth started a chain of events through no fault of hers, yet she will probably always feel responsible. Her twin brother died just a few days after birth, and her mother chose to block it out any way she could. Sidda’s reactions as the child of an alcoholic mother and cowardly father who would rather stay at the duck blind than confront his problems are at once heartbreaking and inspiring. I love the way Rebecca Wells writes. She doesn’t hide from her demons, she lets us all take a look at them to gain strength to deal with our own.

""Buggy is terrified of big organizations. She says they're all in cahoots with each other. For instance, she thinks the Communists have infiltrated the NASA space program to ruin the weather so they can destroy the Catholic church. (pg. 27)"

I'm so confused by this story. I thought the majority of this book was really nicely written, if a bit generic in that it centers on a Southern white suburban family. It seems like Wells didn't try to break through any racial stereotypes surrounding Black workers, and that really irked me. The role of the Black characters seemed only to further the character development of the White main characters, and Wells really didn't write them to have as much personality as the others. There was some unnecessary "blaccent" dialogue that really only furthered the gap between the Black house worker and the protagonists, even though they're all from the same region. I think the humor (when not involving POC), is pretty strong, and the White characters are really well developed.

The different perspectives of the characters and their opinion of the events that occurred showed how alcohol abuse and mental illness can affect families and their members. I really enjoyed the "fun" stories and about broke my heart with the the abuse stories that Vivi did. I have the third book and I think I will re-read the Ya'Ya's again. I also liked the how the "Gret Ole Stet of Loosiana" was frequently brought into this and the southern Catholics and the southern Baptists existed together - or didn't exist, however you want to look at it.

Perfect summer read. Religion, dysfunctional family dynamics and expectations, friendships, hope and despair. I love the way Rebecca Wells writes about southern culture and place.

Despite evidence to the contrary, this is the prequel to Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, a novel that I've been curious about for many years. Call it a guilty pleasure, if you would.