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    Big Stone Gap: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Big Stone Gap: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Big Stone Gap: A Novel
    Audiobook11 hours

    Big Stone Gap: A Novel

    Published by Penguin Random House Audio

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Now a major motion picture written and directed by Adriana Trigiani, starring Ashley Judd, Patrick Wilson, Whoopi Goldberg, John Benjamin Hickey, Jane Krakowski, Anthony LaPaglia, and Jenna Elfman
     
    Millions of readers around the world have fallen in love with the small town of Big Stone Gap, nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, and the story of its self-proclaimed spinster, Ave Maria Mulligan. In the series' enchanting debut, Ave Maria reaches her thirty-fifth year and resigns herself to the single life, filling her days with hard work, fun friends, and good books. Then, one fateful day, Ave Maria's past opens wide with the revelation of a long-buried secret that will alter the course of her life. Before she knows it, Ave Maria is fielding marriage proposals, trying to claim her rightful inheritance, and planning the trip of a lifetime to Italy-one that will change her view of the world and her own place in it forever. Full of wit and wonder, hilarity and heart, Big Stone Gap is a gem of a book, and one that you will share with friends and family for years to come.
     
    Praise for Big Stone Gap
     
    "Charming . . . Readers would do well to fall into the nearest easy chair and savor the story."-USA Today
     
    "Delightfully quirky . . . chock-full of engaging, oddball characters and unexpected plot twists."-People
     
    "[A] heartfelt tale . . . In an anecdotal style reminiscent of Fannie Flagg, Adriana Trigiani engagingly captures a slice of small-town America."-San Jose Mercury News


    From the Trade Paperback edition.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateMay 15, 2012
    ISBN9780449011508
    Unavailable
    Big Stone Gap: A Novel

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    Reviews for Big Stone Gap

    3.5/5

    325 ratings53 reviews

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 2/5
      2.5 Ave Maria came across as a b**** in this one. I was quite displeased.
    • 3/5
      This is the story of Ava Maria McChesney and her life in the small town of Big Stone Gap in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Ava Maria has lived in Big Stone Gap her entire life. She married Jack Chesney later in life and had two children: Joe who died at four, and Etta who's just married and is living in Italy with her new husband in Italy. This is a warm story about family and friendships, and the lessons we learn about love and letting go if we live long enough.
    • 5/5
      Adriana Trigiani has kept up the high quality of her writing in this, the fourth book in the Big Stone Gap series. Even after twenty years of marriage, Ave Maria is finding that you still have to work at your relationship to your husband--you can't just coast and keep a vibrant love going. And she experiences other sides to friendships and the importance of making judgements about your friends.
    • 2/5
      Big Stone Gap is in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia where Ave Maria Mulligan MacChesney lives with her husband , her only daughter having married and moved to Italy.
    • 2/5
      Didn't have the luster of the other books in the series for me. I'm kind of sick of Ave Maria by now.
    • 3/5
      I enjoyed the other books in the series a bit more than this one, but still a fun read with great characters with great dialog.
    • 3/5
      This was like putting on an old favorite sweatshirt - I had read the three previous Stone Gap books years ago, and right away I felt at home with the characters, the setting. I enjoyed it but did not feel overly impressed.
    • 4/5
      The original Big Stone Gap is still the best in this series, but this sentimental fourth installment was perfect for a winter solstice read by the fireside. I love Trigiani's insights about relationships and her character's emotional temperament. She makes an Appalachian small town come to life with people we care about.
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed my time with this book. The characters are original and the setting feels authentic. There's humor and tragedy and great southern charm. I'm definitely continuing the series.
    • 3/5
      A lighthearted, mostly charming read. The novel's "spinster" (an absurd adjective used in excess throughout this novel) heroine bumbles through an identity crisis as she copes with her mother's death and rethinks her life. Predictable in its picture perfect ending and rife with somewhat ridiculous plot twists, Big Stone Gap still manages to amuse with its story of small town Virginia and its eccentric residents.
    • 4/5
      I saw this book several times and never had any interest in reading it until I saw an interview with the author, Adriana Trigiani. She seemed such a down to earth and charming person that my interest was piqued. I am happy I picked it up! It's a sweet story of Ave Maria Mulligan and her journey to finding herself. The story is at times, sad, sweet, and hilarious. I especially enjoyed the peripheral characters like Iva Lou and Pearl. I have since gotten the rest of the books in this series, along with a couple more and am looking forward to reading those.
    • 2/5
      Enjoyed reading about the culture in the book's setting
    • 4/5
      There is nothing better to me than a good, southern novel. This one fits the bill. Set in Big Stone Gap, VA, it tells the story of Ave Maria, the self-proclaimed "Town Spinster", who runs the pharmacy in town and is grieving the recent loss of her mother. Her world takes a sharp turn when she learns that the man she knew as her father, who didn't quite live up to his responsibilities, was never her real father after all. Once Ave finds her real dad, and subsequently "finds herself", all the pieces of her life seem to fall into place.
    • 4/5
      Cute story. Cute setting. Cute characters. Cute writing. Cute cute cute.This was a feel-good book that touched on some tough, real-life issues but mostly made for a wonderful light read.What I love the most: there are two more books in the series and I'm off to hunt for them!
    • 4/5
      Ave Maria Mulligan is the town pharmacist in Big Stone Gap, VA. When her mother dies, she leaves a letter telling her big secret, which changes everything Ave Maria always knew about herself. This is a fun little story of life in the mountains, with all the attendant personalities. Sometimes Ave Maria acts stupidly, but she realizes it eventually, and of course there's a happy ending. This was a good book to read when I found myself in need of a little fluff.
    • 5/5
      I love this book so I decided to listen to it again on yet another drive to a dog show. It was just as good the second time around, like visiting with old friends. In eight years time, one forgets a lot of the details while remembering the important parts. I highly recommend this one if you have not already indulged.
    • 5/5
      This is a great book - small town America at it's best (and worst.) You will fall in love with the characters - they are amazing!
    • 3/5
      It's the late 1970s in the small Virginia coal-town of Big Stone Gap and Ave Maria Mulligan, the self-declared spinster of town, is convinced that during her 35th year big and positive changes are coming for her. And while change does come, it doesn't seem all that positive to begin with.This one ended up on The List after I read [Dear Fahrenheit 451] and while I can see the appeal of the book and get why the librarian author recommends it, I also can declare that it's not really my kind of book. I was initially worried it was going to be too Southern cutesie for me and while it moved away from that, I didn't find the town all that charming. I cared enough about the characters and the plot to read the entire first book but I don't feel compelled to read the rest of the series. YMMV.
    • 3/5
      Big Stone Gap is an easy, amusing read with quirky, memorable characters. However, it does lack the momentum of an exceptional story that leaves the reader completely satisfied. It is easy to love Ave Maria, the novel's protagonist, yet the love story that Trigiani weaves for her is drawn-out and overly sentimental. I found the plot line to be weak and, in some places, too unrealistic. The book did not hold my interest throughout, and, though I bought the second book along with the first, I am unsure that I will read the sequel. Overall, I found this book to be a disappointing read.
    • 4/5
      I liked it. Maybe it was a cultural thing but I could identify with Ave Maria in some ways.
    • 3/5
      I love southern fiction and this series has been on my tbr for quite some time. Unfortunately, it fell flat for me and did not live up to my expectations. It's a mere shadow of great southern lit. The setting in Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains was delightful but the missing were the quirky, lovable characters. The characters were here but they missed being anything short of just slightly odd. The main character was Italian and basically the plot surrounded her finding out about her heritage. When all was said and done though, the book's main focus is that of a romance. There is a slighlty unusual love triangle going on and the boy gets girl is the main theme. I'm not big on romances, but that being said, this did make for an easy read and did keep my attention enough that I read the book. It was well written and though they fell short of my expectations I did enjoy the characters.
    • 5/5
      The Big Stone gaps has such delightful, real characters. I loved this whole series!
    • 3/5
      I started this book with high hopes; I'd heard such good things about Trigiani's other books (especially Lucia, Lucia). But I was more than a little disappointed. I found the writing to be trite, and the characters' behavior too often inexplicable.This book is supposedly about how Ave Maria, the "town spinster" of Big Stone Gap, finds herself and finds love over the course of a year. I suppose that she does, but there were too many improbable things in the story to make either of her discoveries believable.One discovery that is believable: after her mother dies, Ave Maria is given a letter that her mother wrote and left in the care of her lawyer. The letter explains that the man Ave Maria has thought of as her father (who died many years before the story begins), isn't, and that her real father is an Italian man that her mother had to leave behind when she became pregnant. So far, fine. Part of what results is that the family of her erstwhile father come clamoring for what they see is now their inheritance, including the house Ave Maria grew up in and the pharmacy business she now owns and runs. What does Ave Maria do? Rather than fighting this based on the fact that her father's will gave all of his property to her mother, who then gave it to her (although this is mentioned), Ave Maria chooses to protect the assets from the grubbing relatives by transferring the whole thing to her 16-year-old assistant! And as if that weren't improbable enough, she then begins to separate herself from the every-day running of the business and leaves it in the teenager's "capable hands"!Moving on. At 35, Ave Maria is thought of by the town and by herself as a spinster. She prizes herself on her independence, although she wishes she could fall in love with someone who would want to marry her. But, when someone she's known since childhood suddenly proposes to her, she says no, thinking that he's only asking her out of pity, or is playing some kind of trick on her (this I found eminently believable, because if someone up and proposed to me without any sign that they had any special feelings for me, I'd feel the same way!). The man in question gets mightily offended, but doesn't stop trying. Unfortunately, he also doesn't really do anything to demonstrate that he's loved her since they were children (we don't find this out until much later). So why should either we, as readers, much less Ave Maria, believe that he's madly in love with her. Apparently, all her friends knew he was in love her, but we're not told any single thing that he did to demonstrate it. What's more, they apparently knew that she was in love with him, even though we're not told what she may have said or done to give that away. And, none of them will tell her what they've so sneakily observed. Ave Maria does eventually feel all the love, and they get married quickly, and seem very happy. Which is great. Except I don't believe it.
    • 4/5
      This is not a book that will make you think but is, nevertheless a pleasant book to read. There is humor here although some of Trigiani's representations of regional characteristics are a bit overdone. The characters seem real and likeable and the story is intriguing enough to keep the reader's attention engaged. That said, the story also becomes a bit tedious in places. I found myself paging rapidly through some parts of the book, thinking, "just get on with it!" more often than I would have liked. Still, I'd recommend it to a friend.
    • 3/5
      This is pretty light piece of froth, but in general I liked it. Some things had me scratching my head (you love him? really?), but the characters are sweet and likeable. Plus, I am from Virginia, and am familiar with the area this book is set in (I went to school in the foothills, though I grew up in the Tidewater, not the mountains, where this book is set). I always like reading books that are set in familiar locales.
    • 4/5
      I didn't expect to enjoy this book, (there was something about the cover that put me off) but was very pleasantly suprised. I liked the characters, and it had a good story-line. Had to stop myself from reading the second one straight away.
    • 5/5
      Excellent!! Just the right mix of humor and sadness. Great character development. Can't wait to read the next installment!
    • 4/5
      Big Stone Gap was an easy read, but it's endearing southern characters make you want to learn even more about them. Onto the next title in the trilogy...
    • 4/5
      Cute book ... I really enjoyed it. Not sure if I wil read the follow-up book though. I read part of it from the back and, well, it didn't grab me like this one did! Maybe someday ...
    • 4/5
      Pretty good "book club read" liked the trilogy. Slow at first, but kicked in a bit. I enjoyed it