Never Sit Down in a Hoop Skirt and Other Things I Learned in Southern Belle Hell by Crickett Rumley

Expelled from thirteen boarding schools in the past five years, seventeen-year-old Jane Fontaine Ventouras is returning to her Southern roots, and the small town of Bienville, Alabama, where ladies always wear pearls, nothing says hospitality like sweet tea
and pimento cheese sandwiches, and competing in the annual Magnolia Maid Pageant is every girl’s dream.

But Jane is what you might call an anti-belle—more fishnets and tattoos than sugar and spice. The last thing on her mind is joining the Magnolia Maid brigade and parading around town in
a dress so big she can’t even fi t through doors. So when she finds herself up to her ears in ruffl es and etiquette lessons, she’s got one mission: Escape.

What’s a hipster to do? Will Jane survive Bienville boot camp intact or will they—gasp!—make a Southern belle out of her yet?

I had never heard of this book before, but when I saw the title as I was browsing the shelves at the library, I had to read it. It sounded like it had potential to be an entertaining book, which it was, but in a different way than I was expecting.

This book was very much about Jane figuring out who she was and coming to terms with her mother's death and her father's constant absence. Becoming a Magnolia Maid, while it was more a "to spite everyone" move at first, set the wheels in motion for Jane's journey to self discovery.

I suppose it also helped that there was a cute boy waiting back in Bienville that Jane happened to have unresolved feelings for. Cute boys solve everything! I just wish there would have been more to the Jane/Luke story worked into the "I am woman, hear me roar" story.

Anyway, this was a quick and easy summer read. It'd be a good book to take to the beach or the lake or camping or to the park and just sit around in the sun and enjoy. 

Happy Reading!