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Book Reviews of Charms for the Easy Life

Charms for the Easy Life
Charms for the Easy Life
Author: Kaye Gibbons
ISBN-13: 9780380725571
ISBN-10: 0380725576
Publication Date: 6/1/1995
Pages: 256
Rating:
  • Currently 3.9/5 Stars.
 46

3.9 stars, based on 46 ratings
Publisher: Perennial
Book Type: Paperback
Reviews: Amazon | Write a Review

21 Book Reviews submitted by our Members...sorted by voted most helpful

reviewed Charms for the Easy Life on + 18 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 5
Some of this country's strongest women emerged from the Great Depression and WWII. This book celebrates those women and their relationships. I felt like I was wrapped up in a warm blanket listening to stories about my grandmothers. Gibbons lends a wonderful voice to the young Southern girl and weaves relationships that aren't ashamed to show their flaws. I now remember why I enjoyed reading Ellen Foster many years ago.
CozyLover avatar reviewed Charms for the Easy Life on + 335 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
This was a quick, easy read. Well written and interesting. A light read for the beach or pool!
reviewed Charms for the Easy Life on + 35 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
Another Gibbons Great! She writes with such grace, her characters are so charmingly eccentric. I know when I pick up a Kaye Gibbons novel, I will never be dissapointed. Charms for the Easy Life is no exception!
roobaby75 avatar reviewed Charms for the Easy Life on + 4 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
This is a wonderful book about three generations of strong women who refuse to be stereotyped. Beautifully written and inspiring. A piece of fiction that describes the kind of strength that a woman truly wishes for herself and her daughters.
reviewed Charms for the Easy Life on + 24 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
A wonderful story. Not able to put it down. A women's book.
reviewed Charms for the Easy Life on + 136 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
A very strange story set in the backwoods of North Carolina during the depression and WW2
reviewed Charms for the Easy Life on + 6 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
Fantastic book. I love Kaye Gibbons, and I think this one is her best.
reviewed Charms for the Easy Life on + 29 more book reviews
A good old fashioned type book about three generations of women.
KentuckyReader avatar reviewed Charms for the Easy Life on + 37 more book reviews
I loved this book. It was the first book i have read by Kaye Gibbons and it certainly will not be my last. It was very well written and in an easy, conversational dialogue.

The book details the lives of grandmother Clarissa "Charlie Kate" Birch, a smart, stubborn, quirky, self-taught alternative healer/midwife, the mother, Sophia, the most romantic of the family, and main character and daughter Margaret, practical, intelligent, yet romantic- are unique, they stand out from the average woman of the 1930s-1940s of the South. Yet at the same time, they have the same basic desire, to be loved and respected, as anyone else.

The story is told from granddaughter Margaret's point of view but mainly centers around the grandmother, the hero of the family. Charlie Kate is the larger-than-life character, an "Ubermensch." Charlie delivers babies, heals with herbs, reads two books a week, saved a person from a lynching; sewed body parts together, treated malaria, and comforted the dying, along with directing the lives of her daughter & granddaughter.
bythebook avatar reviewed Charms for the Easy Life on
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I'm not sure if I can really explain why. It was easy to read, and moved along quite well. The best thing was the quirky, interesting characters. My favorite was the grandmother. Oh, how I wish this had been a true story. Or at least, based on a real person. I didn't want it to end, but at least it didn't leave me unsatisfied with the ending.
scrappygal avatar reviewed Charms for the Easy Life on + 8 more book reviews
Not a book you "can't put down", but a good one nonetheless. Well written story about three women and their lives.
reviewed Charms for the Easy Life on + 68 more book reviews
My favorite of her books. Grandma, mother and daughter all sassy and extraordinary!
reviewed Charms for the Easy Life on + 88 more book reviews
absolutly wonderful,another one I just couldn't put down.
reviewed Charms for the Easy Life on + 9 more book reviews
This is a lovely book about a young girl growing up with her grandmother and mother during the 1920's until the early 40's in North Carolina. I loved this book - couldn't put it down.
reviewed Charms for the Easy Life on + 55 more book reviews
Another Kaye Gibbons book that I enjoyed very much. Her characters come alive; Gibbons makes reader care what happens to every one of them.
reviewed Charms for the Easy Life on + 162 more book reviews
I enjoyed it. If you're from North Carolina you will like it too. About 3 stubborn Carolina women around the 1930's.
reviewed Charms for the Easy Life on + 5 more book reviews
Cozy and romantic.
reviewed Charms for the Easy Life on + 30 more book reviews
This is one of my all time favorite books. I have read it 3-4 times and shared it with my daughter in law, who loved it too. What a group of women they are!
reviewed Charms for the Easy Life on + 102 more book reviews
A very moving book! another awesome Gibbons book:)

In the verdant backwoods of North Carolina, in a sad and singular era, the Birches are unique among women of their time-living gloriously rich it decidedly offbeat lives in a private world abandoned by men. And though misery often heats a path to their door, headstrong Sophia and her y, brilliant daughter Margaret possess charms to ward off loneliness and despair-thanks to the uncompromising strength, uncommon wisdom, and muscular love of a remarkable matriarch and self-taught healer who calls herself Charlie Kate.

In Charms for the Easy Life, Kaye Gibbons has created a luminous, truth telling novel that gives life to her most passionate and tough minded women yet.
taosing avatar reviewed Charms for the Easy Life on + 76 more book reviews
I don't really read her stuff. But, I figure a lot of folks do. So. Here it is!
WestofMars avatar reviewed Charms for the Easy Life on + 162 more book reviews
I read this years ago and loved it, so when I saw a copy at a used book sale, I grabbed it to share.

Like all my other books, this book has been registered at BookCrossing.com. While it won't hinder your reading of the book, I'd sure appreciate a journal entry telling me what you thought of it.