This is another of the books my daughter gave me in the grab-bag of books she gave me for Christmas. I read a couple of the others first as I didn't think I was going to like it as much as some of the others. I had seen the movie back in the day, and liked it, but somehow I didn't really think I would warm to the book. I was wrong!

I have to acknowledge that I am not usually very good at forming what I would consider visual images of characters from books. In this case, however Fanny Flag colors her characters so well, I was able to see them in my mind; and in retrospect the casting director for the movie got them right.

I enjoy books that make me smile. Fried Green Tomatoes made me laugh out loud so many times. Oh, it had its sad parts as well, but isn't that what life is like?

I came to love the way the book transitions from Mrs Threadgoode's story telling in the 80s as a transition to the present tense living of the events.

Not to minimize the other characters, with one exception all are good, the world needs more Ruths and Idgies. It would be a better place. The Bad one gets his just deserts.

Read it. It will make your day better.

This book was exactly what I needed; an easy read, short chapters and an actual great story to follow. I apologize now to anyone who knows me because I may inadvertently talk in a southern accent for a while now. Or at least what sounds like a southern accent in my head :-p It's also made me want to eat a whole mess of fried chicken and gravy and grits. And to start using terms like "mess".

a book you can read over and over... hits you differently every time

This book was FANTASTIC. I’m in tears though. Shoutouts to Mrs. Kirk for giving me the book and to Beck for recommending it and providing emotional support throughout <3

Quite the treat. My grandmother is southern but being raised by Midwest parents, I didn't live this way. But I see a lot of my grandmother in Ninny. The stories are quite lovely. It's a time capsule of how awful things were for poor people and Black folks. It's been ages since I saw the movie but I wanted to read the book for the gay ladies. It's sweet if not dated with some of the language (white people are notoriously awful in the south of course) but a good picture of the Depression era south and how progress may or may not have happened by 1986.

Fried Green Tomatoes is whimsy as hell and a light, fun read -- if you're a middle-class white woman. It's inclusion of racism is neither a convincing social commentary nor in any way respectful to its Black characters, and there's a lot of "I'm not racist, these are my Black friends so I can say/do these things." Additionally, while at the time it may have been a groundbreaking feminist story, it's very much a white feminism vibe. I cringed/seethed through Evelyn's prejudicial, classist and eugenicist feminist awakening.

Credit for the real-world and non-revelatory inclusion of a stable (and mostly healthy) lesbian couple and their disabled son whose entire purpose in the story isn't to be disabled. There's strong themes of found family, self-discovery, and aging. But it doesn't make up for the rest.