Rhett Butler's People

[This book was the last book I read in 2007 (53 was my total for the year).]

I was prepared to hate it, prepared to toss it against the nearest wall, prepared to hock it at my local used bookstore (though it would have never come to that since I cannot bear to part with any book with Rhett, Scarlett, or Tara in the title); I wasn't prepared by how good it would be once I realized the head-hopping povs and mid-paragraph dialogue changes were just how the whole book was going to go down.

My friends and I discussed my outrage/fear/WTH? when I found out this book would be released. One of them mentioned "cash cow".

First, you should know that I love Scarlett O'Hara. No, it's true. I wanted to name one of my children Scarlett, but my husband (when he was my boyfriend) quashed that notion almost immediately. I'm okay with it now, twelve years after the fact, though I clearly remember the discussion in his dorm room and the "Uh, no" that followed. So, in my eyes, Scarlett can do no wrong.

I read Gone With the Wind in Honors American Literature my junior year of high school. Scarlett became a role model for me. If Scarlett can survive her mother's death, I could too. (My mother died my junior year of high school.) If Scarlett can survive her father's tumble out of reality, I can too. (My father turned to alcohol following my mother's death where he remained for the next seven years.) I clung to "Tomorrow is another day." Literally.

Then Scarlett was released. I inhaled the book. And when I finished, I wondered who I'd read about. Rhett would have never married any woman like Melanie (despite his respect for Melly), and Scarlett wouldn't have been so damn stupid as to invite Ashley to her hotel room in the middle of the day, regardless of the fact that she now knew she didn't love him, and Scarlett would have cared if she'd gained weight, and I don't think she would have hightailed it out of Charleston once she knew she was pregnant with Rhett's child nor would she have gone to Ireland and gotten mixed up with the IRA.

What irritated me more than anything though was Ms. Ripley's use of her own Charleston characters -- and similar plot (minus the drugs) as On Leaving Charleston. Of course, I didn't find that out until I read Ms. Ripley's books.

Rhett Butler's People is a very interesting look into Rhett's life. One that, despite the head-hopping, I loved reading. I was totally immersed. The fact that Scarlett consumed his thoughts from the moment he laid eyes on her at Twelve Oaks only solidified there would be no other for him. (Can we just swoon and die now?) All the characters were wonderful; Rhett's interaction with them priceless. And can I just say that the final third of the book is exactly what the whole of Scarlett should have been. Exactly.