Sue Ellen's Girl Ain't Fat, She Just Weighs Heavy

May 1, 2011

The bestselling author of Suck Your Stomach In & Put Some Color On! (2008) continues the tradition of generously bestowing her grand ol' insight into all things Southern.

Tomlinson's graceful ability to sensibly break down the difference between "normal crazy" (piercing your nose) and "straight running crazy" (piercing your private parts) is appreciated. She rails on topics such as modern-day potty training and reaffirms the importance of being a lady at all times, at any cost. Sometimes it seems as though random stories are included for no other purpose than to take up space on a page, but Tomlinson's dialect ("I'm as busy as a cat in a roomful of rocking chairs myself") is by and large engaging and peppery enough to make readers wish they were sitting on a porch in the heat sipping a tall, cold glass of sweet tea. Tomlinson intersperses her southern-fried yarns with a collection of recipes to match, more than a handful of which include "The Holy Trinity of Southern Cooking" (one cup each chopped onion, bell pepper and celery). Most enjoyable are the author's inclusion of reader-generated material, which recount her fans' own Southern Mama-isms, such as "I'm going to pinch your head off and spit in the hole." Why? "Because spit burns!"

A little bit redneck and a whole lot of charm.

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