Recipe Weekend: Book Review and Giveaway: You Don't Sweat Much for a Fat Girl: Observations on Life from the Shallow End of the Pool by Celia Rivenbark

** this giveaway is closed **


And now for something from one of my favorite authors:

Synopsis: In her newest wickedly irreverent humor collection, Celia Rivenbark cracks up while getting her downward facing dog on, pines for a world in which every mom gets to behave like Betty Draper and wonders why everybody's so excited about the Science Fair when there aren't even any rides. In it you’ll find essays on such topics as:  Menopause Spurs Thoughts of Death and Turkey, I Dreamed a Dream That My Lashes Were Long, Movie To-Do List: Cook Like Julia, Adopt Really Big Kid, and Charlie Bit Your Finger? Good! 




About the Author: Celia Rivenbark is the author of the award-winning bestsellers Stop Dressing Your Six-Year-Old Like a Skank; Bless Your Heart, Tramp; Belle Weather; and You Can’t Drink All Day If You Don’t Start in the Morning. We’re Just Like You, Only Prettier won a Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance (SIBA) Book Award for nonfiction and was a finalist for the James Thurber Prize for American Humor. Born and raised in Duplin County, North Carolina, Rivenbark grew up in a small house “with a red barn out back that was populated by a couple of dozen lanky and unvaccinated cats.” She started out writing for her hometown paper. She writes a weekly, nationally syndicated humor column for the Myrtle Beach Sun News. She lives in Wilmington, North Carolina


Review: Full of chapters that stand on their own, this is the perfect book to leave in the car or purse and pull out when you are waiting and need to get a couple of laughs. I've been a big fan of Rivenbark's since her Stop Dressing Your Six-Year-Old Like a Skank book came out (if you have a daughter- READ IT). She has been called "Dave Barry with a female attitude"- I'd call it a SOUTHERN WOMAN attitude, and ya'll KNOW what I mean by that- there IS a difference!


In this book, Rivenbark I think the most hilarious chapter was about Twitter and Southerners tweeting. I just about lost it when she started in on how can a Southerner limit what they are saying to 140 CHARACTERS, it's like CHEATING! Cause how can you tell exactly what you mean in a sentence or two? Southerners don't talk that way! Course she also laments how Southerners used to not voice their displeasure, and instead went cat and mouse on payback. Now it's all out in the open, and maybe that's a bad thing? And yes, I don't really need to know everything a celebrity is doing, who needs that much self-satisfaction? 


Now I do need to warn you, Rivenbark's "daddy was a Southern democrat" (go ahead ya'll sing the rest of the song, then come back to finish reading), and she does have a couple of chapters that are pro-Democrat. So ya'll Tea Partiers and Republicans, just skip those chapters and you'll be just fine, you'll agree with the rest of the book.


Now being Southern, Rivenbark can't get away from FOOD.  Duh. So she has thoughtfully included a couple of recipes in the book- AHA you knew there was a reason for the recipe weekend meme link, right? - and I'm sharing one which is super! Just remember to go pick up the book, and get some good Southern flavored laughs and wish Rivenbark was your best friend! I mean wouldn't you be freaked out if there was a white full sized casket, sitting on a flatbed of a pickup truck, parked right in front of you house for over 3 hours". And wouldn't you feel the need to share this observation with one and all? Right, so you see, you'd want her to be calling you too! So check out the book and make your day complete!


Butter Pecan Pound Cake

1 pkg Betty Crocker Butter Pecan Cake Mix (or spice cake mix) 1 cup milk 2/3 cup cooking oil 4 eggs 1 tsp vanilla 1 cp chopped pecans, divided 1 container coconut-pecan frosting (the kind you use to frost a German choc. cake) Directions: 1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 2. Grease and flour a Bundt pan (or use Baker's Joy and make life easy) 3. Mix eggs, milk, oil and vanilla together. Add half the pecans. 4. Add cake mix and beat well. 5. Fold in can of frosting until incorporated. 6. Place remaining pecans in bottom of bundt pan, and pour frosting in cake pan. 7. Bake for one hour. Very rich and very dense, cut thin slices!

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Disclosure / Disclaimer: I received this book for review purposes, free of charge, from Wunderkind PR ! No other compensation, monetary or in kind, has been received or implied for this post. Nor was I told how to post about it!