Stop Dressing Your Six-Year-Old Like a Skank

In some 32 short essays on the ridiculousness of modern life, Rivenbark (Bless Your Heart, Tramp; We're Just Like You, Only Prettier) wanders through Tweenland at the mall, thinking a better name would be "Lil Skanks." She thinks that the Cruise/Holmes pregnancy has an "indescribably delicious" Rosemary's Baby feel to it and recalls that Monica Lewinsky hosted a TV dating show—in which she "didn't get the guy." Rivenbark riffs on America's crazier obsessions—the painful but obligatory pilgrimage to Disney World, the new attention to "buttocks cleavage," coffee makers calling themselves baristas, or those celebrity moms who have "bumps" instead of babies. Rivenbark describes herself as a "slacker mom" and reminds readers to learn something from men—"because no matter how slack a dad is, if he does the least little thing, people gush over him." This is a hilarious read, perhaps best enjoyed while eating Krispy Kremes with a few girlfriends.

~ Publisher's Weekly

We're Just Like You, Only Prettier

"After winning Southern women's hearts with her SEBA bestseller Bless Your Heart, Tramp in 2000, Rivenbark has penned a new--and equally sidesplitting--collection of essays, offering Northern and Southern sisters alike a woman's take "on those irksome little yuks in daily ilfe." Although she warns certain readers (Yankees, namely) that they may need a Southern lexicon to decipher her down-home prose style, Rivenbark's focus on familiar topics like family, relationships and child rearing should appeal to most females, regardless of geography or age. Marked by a feisty, sarcastic tone and tempered with plenty of cries of "yoo-hoo" and "Well, shit," even chapter titles (e.g. "Stop Watching Your Plasma TV and Start Selling Your Plasma: How to Become Honest-to-Jesus White Trash" and "Here Comes the Bride: Let's just Get 'Em Hitched Sometime Before We See the Head") don't escape the author's wry humor. The most mundane situations become laugh-out-loud scenarios. When, for example, Rivenbark is confronted by the "Preschool Nazis" and intimidating "granola moms" at her four-year-old's school, she admits asking her daughter to lie about what she had for breakfast (a foil-wrapped breakfast bar instead of the required "scrambled eggs, a bowl of real oatmeal--the kind you have to cook on top of the, uh, you know, stove--two slices of whole wheat toast and a glass of soy milk"). Rivenbark is a hoot"

~Publisher's Weekly

I laughed so hard reading this book I began snorting in an unbecoming fashion."

 ~ Haven Kimmel, author of A Girl Named Zippy

"I thought I was Southern until I read Celia Rivenbark's book...what a funny, smart, and irreverent writer she is!"

~ Lee Smith, author of The Last Girls

"She is one of our greatest domestic anthropologists, digging up and airing all those things we like to think others don't know...I don't know when I have laughed so loud and so long."

~ Jill McCorkle, author of Creatures of Habit

"Celia's book rocks; everyone is going to love it."

~ Laurie Notaro, author of The Idiot Girls Action Adventure Club

"A funny, no-holds-barred look at today's South."~ Haywood Smith, author of The Red Hat Club

Bless Your Heart, Tramp

"Bright, witty and warm…stories that make a desperate gift-giver weep glad tears of relief…a pleasing blend of spice, humor and memories."

~ St. Petersburg ( FL ) Times

"Why should every self-respecting Southern woman keep a 'funeral casserole' in the freezer? What's the difference between a 'tad,' a 'smidgen' and a 'right smart'? For answers, look no further than Celia Rivenbark's hilarious -- and right on the money -- Bless Your Heart, Tramp."

~ The Charlotte (NC) Observer

"Celia Rivenbark has the goods and then some. She makes you laugh out loud dozens of times. Anyone who has the moxie to toss off a piece titled 'Fake Dog Testicles' will tread into the wildest stretches of comedic terrain... Just when you think Erma Bombeck strip-mined the comedy out of motherhood, Rivenbark shows off some sparkling new gems, such as 'A Mom Looks at 40' and 'Happy Meal Hostage'… Here's hoping Rivenbark achieves Bombeckian dimensions." 

 ~ The State ( Columbia , S.C. )

"The Good Read of the Week, (Bless Your Heart, Tramp) is a hilarious look at Southern --and just plain human -- foibles, up close and personal."

~ The News & Observer ( Raleigh , N.C. )

"(written with) a love for language that is unmistakable, Rivenbark reeks of sass…puts a fresh face on the South." 

 ~ Herald-Journal ( Spartanburg , S.C. )