Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

GONE WITH THE WIND ends with a question mark. Scarlett's ideal mate, Rhett Butler, has left her--and she is determined to get him back. But can she? Did she? And author Margaret Mitchell was beseiged with fans who wanted to know. To one and all Mitchell gave the same answer: the story ended where it ended. There was nothing more to tell. But where there is a will, there is a way--and especially so where there is a buck to be made. Some thirty-plus years after her untimely death, Mitchell's estate was persuaded to release the rights, and Alexandria Ripley was contracted to "finish" the story. Although she is writing a sequel, Ripley goes to considerable pain to prevent readers from compairing her style and her novel to Mitchell's style and her novel--and so, wisely perhaps, Ripley wastes little time in killing off Mammy and moving the action out of Georgia entirely. But Ripley also revises the leading characters, and in the most bizarre ways imaginable. Scarlett gives Tarah to her sister Sue Ellen and runs off to Ireland, where she learns it is much easier to dance a jig if you take your corset off first. Give away Tara? To the sister she always hated? Ireland? Stranger still, when Rhett leaves Scarlett he goes to Charleston, where he tries to make amends with his family while also indulging his love of horticulture. HORTICULTURE? Well Hush My Mouth And Stuff Me With Chiltins! Now, Ripley--who is best known for such mild-mannered but best-selling historical romances as CHARLESTON--isn't a bad writer. And frankly, if we changed the names Rhett and Scarlett to something else, this would be an okay book. But Ripley ain't no Margaret Mitchell. And Ripley's versions of Scarlett and Rhett have about as much to do with Mitchell's original creations as Santa Claus has to do with the Fourth of July. As Mitchell said, the story ended where it ended; there was nothing more to tell. And frankly, my dear, Alexandra Ripley should have left it at that. GFT, Amazon Reviewer