{"id":488,"date":"2009-09-05T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-01-05T22:56:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/?p=488"},"modified":"2024-12-31T13:54:49","modified_gmt":"2024-12-31T00:54:49","slug":"the-crowning-glory-of-calla-lily-ponder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/2009\/09\/05\/the-crowning-glory-of-calla-lily-ponder\/","title":{"rendered":"The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Rebecca Wells<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-large-font-size\"><em>Harper Collins<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-medium-font-size\">Otago Daily Times, September 5th 2009<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">In <em>\u201cThe Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder\u201d<\/em>, Rebecca Wells continues to explore territory familiar to readers of her other novels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"> Calla Lily Ponder is born in the small Louisiana town of La Luna, where her parents run a dancing studio and her mother, M\u2019Dear, has a beauty salon. As a young girl watching her mother work, Calla Lily realises that her mother does more than pamper her clients and that <em>\u201cwashing and setting a person\u2019s hair could sometimes change her world\u201d.<\/em>\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Devastated by her mother\u2019s death from breast cancer, Calla Lilly decides to follow in her mother\u2019s footsteps, moving to New Orleans to study cosmetology even though this means losing her first love.\u00a0 Here she goes through various trials and triumphs, working towards her goal of reopening her mother\u2019s salon as La Luna\u2019s \u201cCrowning Glory\u201d and rediscovering happiness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Unfortunately, Calla Lilly\u2019s conviction that hairdressing is a healing art undermines (for me) her otherwise philosophical pronouncements on love, grief and friendship.\u00a0 Similarly, descriptions of her grief at her husband\u2019s death, although an accurate portrayal of loss, went through a few more moments of \u2018letting go\u2019 than my patience could sustain.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">I think I just took it too seriously, and to her credit Wells is a very sensual writer. I felt immersed in the sounds, smells, music and food of the Deep South. For readers with a less cynical bent, especially those who loved the <em>Ya Ya Sisterhood<\/em> and Wells\u2019 other novels, I thoroughly recommend it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rebecca Wells<br \/>\n<br \/>\nOtago Daily Times review September 5th 2009<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[88,370,18,104],"class_list":["post-488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","tag-88","tag-fiction","tag-odt","tag-rebecca-wells"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=488"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1431,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488\/revisions\/1431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}