Cover Image: Front Porch Lemonade

Front Porch Lemonade

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Member Reviews

This is a heartwarming tale of 6 women who gather on a porch, drink lemonade and share their great friendships. I found it sweet and a lovely read. its the perfect book for those of us that enjoy books about true friendships and real life relationships. Each women is different and yet they are all the best of friends. Its a nice story about small towns, friends and enjoying important moments in life.

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This is great story of 6 women who live in a small southern town. They help keep each other grounded and sane as they live life. I think an adult reader will enjoy this tale because you can connect with at least one of the ladies. The women meet regularly on Miss Abby's front porch and drink lemonade as they discuss what karma has thrown them. They share good times and tragedy, laughter and tears. The characters are all normal everyday ladies who could live next door. This is a sweet and non violent story . You'll laugh and cry right along with them. I received a copy of this ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.

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Thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the advance copy of this book. A wonderful story of friends, love, life and loss. Their weekly gathering on the front porch for lemonade and sharing life's ups and downs. A sweet light hearted read.

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One of my favourite books, which I go back to repeatedly, is The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells and I am consistently drawn to any book that promises tales of warm, Southern life and female friendship. From the description, I thought this was going to be such a book, and the colourful jug of lemonade on the cover seduced me further but, having read it, I am afraid I have been left wanting.

This book centres around the friendship of six Southern women who gather frequently on the porch of their unofficial leader, Abigail Ashhurst, to drink her famous homemade lemonade (the recipe for this delight is in the front of the book and I am definitely going to give it a try soon) and put the world to rights. These women are strong and sassy and have each others backs through the onslaught of trials, tribulations and tragedies that befall them over the course of two years.

I say two years but the time frame is not clear as it is not a linear story but rather jumps around in time from one day to another and then weeks or months ahead and then back to a few days apart. It is often hard to tell exactly when in time we are in relation to the last chapter which made the read a little disorienting.

In addition, and to confuse things more, this is not a clear, linear plot but a series of vignettes and stories about each of the six women intermingled, so you are often trying to sort out which character is which, who their husbands/children/dogs/colleagues are and what they each do, as well as the relevance of the anecdote. It does not make for easy reading and I also found that the jumping around made it impossible for me to bond with any of the characters enough to particularly care about them. This became an issue when the author was trying to address some serious issues faced by a couple of the characters towards then end. I had no emotional investment in the characters which lessened the impact of these events. I think the author was trying to use these stories to reveal the character of the six women and the Southern way of life, but it really didn’t work for me at all.

There was some really good scene setting which gave us a feeling of what the town of Eubanks was like and an insight into the peculiarly Southern way of life but there wasn’t enough of this to satisfy me or make up for what the book lacked in other areas.

One of the main issues I had was the main character of Abby and trying to work out her character. I think the women are all supposed to be of a similar age – mid-40s – but a couple of them spoke and acted like teenagers and ‘Miss Abby’ came across as about 80. She was so uptight (she runs the local school of etiquette) with seemingly no private life and no sense of humour that she was totally impossible to relate to. I just did not connect with any of the characters at all which made this a tough read.

This isn’t a terrible book, I didn’t hate it. On finishing it I mainly felt a sense of relief and a certain dissatisfaction that I hadn’t gained anything from the reading experience.

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Front Porch Lemonade by JudiLynn Taylor is trully a fantastic read.
On the front porch of a house in a small Southern town six women gather together to talk, cry, laugh and live their life.
Through their stories we learn about life, loss, joy and battles we all got through our lives. It is cozy and warm story and it feels like getting together with our own friends for a long get together session.
This is one of those books that are easy to read but stay with us for a long long time.

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I requested this book from Netgalley because the description along with the cover made me think that I would enjoy it. Unfortunately, I did not. The women do gather and they do try to be "sassy" but I continually had to ask myself how old were these women because they mostly come across like a bunch of teenagers. This one just wasn't for me.

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I was immediately drawn to the cover of this book because of the big glass of lemonade on it. The girls had a beautiful friendship throughout the book and I tried to read it all the way through but I just could not connect to the characters at all so I didn't finish it. I received this ARC from the publisher through NetGalley for my honest reviews.

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Not my cup of tea and that is that. Thanks Net galley for the chance to read this book.

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Oh, how I enjoyed this book. I felt like I was a part of this wonderful group of friends. It may me remember sitting out on the porch with my Grandmother and her circle of friends and not only laughing at their antics and sayings, but gaining much wisdom. This was a feel good book and I was sad when it ended. Great book. Thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the ARC of this book in return for my honest review.

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I love this book! What a delightful story of friendships, girlfriends, life, love, and loss. This group of amazing ladies will have you laughing and crying.

While they are laughing at themselves and each other, they are also loving on each other, sharing joys and sorrows, joking, and crying. Their stories are funny and so real...you probably know someone just like one of them!

I was sitting in the dining room on a cruise ship just boohooing! I finally had to take off my glasses because the lens were smudged with tears. As your heart aches, you also have moments when you gasp in shock.

It is a book that was absolutely delightful! I want to join this fun and caring group of ladies...to sit on the porch surrounded by their love and laughter and lemonade!

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This book reminded me to much of Sweet Tea Tuesdays, This book just couldn't hold my attention. It was to full of nonsense details

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This was a super cute book and a very light-hearted read. The characters had a bunch of back and forth on the porch. It was fun, but a little hard to follow. After a few chapters you started to see how they were friends and how it all weaves together. There were two things that happened at the end that could have been brought in at the beginning and made to feel more a part of the book but they were just a stand alone at the end. I think the premise of the book was good, but could have used a little tweaking.

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This is a cute idea of telling the ongoing daily stories of women who are friends and who meet often on the front porch of one of them. Stories of daily life abound with down home Southern flair-some funny, some serious and all of them interesting to the women friends.

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This is a great book with a wonderful story and well developed characters. The story flowed very well and was very enjoyable. This book will keep you reading long into the night and you will not want to put this book down until you finish. This was such a great read and full of surprises. I voluntarily reviewed an advanced reader’s copy of this book. The free book held no determination on my personal review.

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I neither loved or disliked this book. It was good at part but sometimes fell flat. It could have been a very good book but it was missing something.
Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher

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I really tried to get into and like this book but it just wouldn't happen. Too boring and the character of Abby is so unlikable that I coulnd't continue reading.

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Very well written, a rich tapestry of relationships, emotions, and life events that are weaved together seamlessly. A comfortable, amusing read that will leave readers longing for lemonade with their own set of close friends and confidants.

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A sweet and heartfelt story of six women friends. Abby, Vera, Ida Sue, Ruby, Camilla and Tierra all get together on Abby's porch to share lemonade, snacks and share what is going on in their lives. Some stories made me laugh, others made me cry, but mainly they ran the gamete. Each of the stories helped to get to know the women more, and made me wish I could sit in and listen to them and enjoy a glass with them too. A nice feel good story, and one I highly recommend.

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I rarely put a book to the side without finishing it but this was what I did with this one. The dialect of a couple of the women was such poor English that I was skipping over their parts of the conversations, which you can not do and know the story! It seemed to me that the women were so different that they would have nothing in common much less a close friendship. I found it to be boring as the book was mostly an ongoing conversation with not much daily action of any kind. Also it was hard to get invested with the characters. Maybe I didn't read far enough.

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