The Goddess of Fried Okra

When I started this book, I was sure that I wasn't going to like it. The first chapter made it sound like some crazy Southern girl was going to be chasing around, looking for the reincarnation of her sister.

It got better.

Eudora ("Pea") O'Brien sets off in her eleven year-old Toyota with her total stake of $607.83, heading across Texas towards New Mexico, where she believes her sister will show up. Along the way, she picks up a kitten, an abused and pregnant teenager, and a con man.
Then the car breaks down just outside of Jewel, Texas, and the motley crew is forced to stay a while to work off the car repairs. But instead of getting all sappy, the rest of the story is mostly believable, and what isn't makes you want to believe it anyway. show more Each chapter begins with the text from a Texas road marker, which is fun. I enjoyed the way most of the characters matured, relationships were built slowly enough to make sense, and all of the stupid things the characters did were things I could see myself doing. This book would be great brain candy if you're looking for something about two steps above "chick lit." It worked for me! show less

I'm really not into chick-lit and the down-home, folksy narration this uses should make me really cranky, but every time I started to put this down and walk away I'd think "just a few more pages" until ... a few hours later I found myself at the end. Despite the fact that this is something I think I shouldn't have enjoyed at all, I found myself laughing and crying as I watched Eudora, aka Pea, leave Austin on her quest to find her sister's reincarnated self somewhere in Taos and get sidetracked by the menagerie of people she decides to rescue along the way. It's not so much a story of redemption as it is a story of dealing with grief and (self) forgiveness.

I received a digital ARC of this through NetGalley.

I received this book as a Librarything Early Reviewer; not sure if I would have tried it otherwise. The story of a woman "lost" because she has no family and is trying to get over the death of her sister and the circumstances surrounding her death. Premise is fine but the book didn't really grab me. The reincarnation theme was a little too constant and therefore distracting. The story got better when Eudora ("Pea") gets stuck in a small town waiting for her car to be repaired. There she finds the people and the strength to rebuild her life and form her own new, untraditional "family."

I received this book as part of the LibraryThing Early Reiewers program, and I'm so glad I did.

A couple of my favorite authors for Southern Lit are Fannie Flagg and Billie Letts, and I am now happy to add a third - Jean Brashear. I truly enjoyed this story of Pea (Eudora) striking out on her own in search of the soul of her reincarnated sister, but of course finding much more than that along the way. It's a funny, touching tale of a young woman afraid to put down roots for fear of being hurt again and how she overcomes this fear with the love of friends and a new 'family' that she collects on her travels. I just love the authors sense of humor and the way she can turn a simple sentence into something that makes me laugh out loud. I show more really, really enjoyed this book and I can honestly give it a two thumbs up. Highly recommended. show less

Early reviewer book. When I first opened this book, I wasn't sure why it began with a description of Mount Bonnell, Texas. Turns out each chapter starts with the text from a Texas roadside marker because the heroine stops at every such marker she sees along the highway. Eudora O'Brien goes on the road after a psychic tells her 1) she would find her family if she opened her heart and 2) New Mexico might be in her future. Eudora is convinced that she'll find her reincarnated Sister by traveling to New Mexico. She doesn't believe in reincarnation herself, but her sister did, so off she goes in her cantankerous eleven-year-old Toyota ( not on the recall list.) Eudora, or Pea (short for Sweetpea) picks up a kitten at her first stop along the show more road and rescues a young girl from an abusive boyfriend at the next. The teenager happens to be pregnant and not happy to be rescued. The kitten does not appear to be Sister reincarnated, but the baby might turn out to be. The trio pick up a hitchhiking con man along the way to round out the entourage. That all happens in the first 25 pages.
Surprise! the car breaks down. Maybe it was recalled after all. Of course it costs more to fix it than the Blue Book value on it, so Pea goes to work at a restaurant in Jewel, Texas. Before the car is fixed, all kinda dadgum things happen, but you'll have to read it yourself to find out what.
I was totally put off by Eudora's unbelievable naivete and gullibility as well as the piling on of coincidental encounters. Things did settle down after they reached Jewel, and there were some "jewels" of Eudora wisdom to contemplate, such as: "You should never, ever assume life won't slap you upside the head with a surprise or two you'd just as soon have passed on." and "Nothing good ever comes of sitting still in troubled times." Not my cup of tea. show less

I wanted to like this book - I mean, what has better promise for a story than a kitten and a broadsword? The premise is intriguing, but the characters are hard to know. The heroine comes across as puerile, naive, obsessed and directionless. She does eventually find direction, and she overcomes some of her helplessness, but by the time she does, it is too late. She is certain that her sister's spirit will be reborn, and she is on a search for her - convinced that she is either a kitten or the unborn child of an abused teen. Valentine, a con man, really has no personality and has a predictable part to play in the story as a bad-boy-gone-straight. The later characters of the married couple that live together but don't speak and the show more broadsword-wielding gun shop owner are amusing caricatures, but too oddball to feel real. The chapter headings are all Texas historical markers, which is an interesting addition to the story, and I wonder if they are actual markers or just fabricated to help set the scene. The author had a great plot idea, but for me, the execution of the story just fell short. It felt a little like a Stephanie Plum novel without the mystery, the steamy love triangle or the hamster.

I received a free review copy of this book from Netgalley.com show less

How I enjoyed watching Eudora find a new family in midst of her grief for the death of her sister. Like so many of us, she has an idea in her mind of what she needs to come to terms with her loss, but the solution comes in a very different form and it takes awhile for her to recognize. I loved the recurring images of strong women that Eudora recalls as she deals with difficult situations - and that in the end she recognizes herself as one of those strong women. I liked Eudora and was sad when her story came to a close.