I wish I hadn't read it. It was a little depressing. It was Will, as an adult. Instead of just the one summer of his youth, it was compressed version of his adulthood and had a dark tone. Also, it is half book, half about the author. She died while she was trying to finish it. It was told in the second, that she was is bed, practically the entire time she was writing it. I'm sure that is the reason it was so drastically different. However, it is worth reading Cold Sassy Tree. If you are happy to...

This book is half fiction, half biography.The fiction consists of the unfinished sequel that Olive Ann Burns wrote, but was unable to finish before her death. The biography is written by her publisher, who developed a close relationship with Burns and her husband, Andy Sparks. As expected, the fiction of the unfinished work, is good, but not as polished as Cold Sassy Tree, and inspite of Olive Ann Burns' efforts, still leaves the reader with a lack of completion regarding what happens to Will Tw...

I struggled with how to rate this. How do you rate a novel that is far from finished, written by a master storyteller who, given time, would probably have rewritten even the chapters available? How do you rate where the story might've gone, based on notes, knowing that the nature of fiction means things in the story would've changed as the author continued writing? Of course I was happy to spend a few more chapters with Will Tweedy, since Cold Sassy Tree has long been a favorite of mine--the boo...

I am so sorry Ms. Burns died before she could finish this book.

I've finished reading the unfinished part of this novel and am reading the part about the author now. She passed away before finishing the novel and it was her wish that what she'd written be published. I found the story fairly interesting, but I definitely prefer books that end. I enjoyed Cold Sassy Tree, but have to say I was disappointed with how Will turned out. Mention of an affair and not truly loving his wife just made me sad. This was all in the notes, and not in the finished portion, bu...

This book made me sad. Really only about a third of it was written by Olive Ann Burns because she died before she could complete the sequel to Cold Sassy Tree. The rest of the book is a reminiscence about Burns, written by her editor. She sounds like she was an amazing person who had the gift of acceptance, of making the best of things as they are - like beginning to write a novel as a way to take her mind off being diagnosed with cancer. Who does that? Inspiring but still so sad.

The first 15 chapters of Olive Ann Burns' unfinished sequel to Cold Sassy Tree, followed by a touching reminiscence from one of her editors, this book may disappoint readers hoping for something else. But taken for what it it is, it's a fine book. The reminiscence is illuminating and enjoyable, and the beginning of what would have been an excellent novel is a delight to read. The dialect and mannerisms are familiar to me, dear to my heart, and seemingly bound for extinction. Ms. Burns captured t...

This book is really a tribute to the author Olive Ann Burns and the way that she decided to live her life. While this was a re-read for me, I thoroughly enjoyed the story again. And now, of course, I have to read Cold Sassy Tree again. My copy is coming to me in the mail on Friday. Can you believe that my library, which is awesome, doesn't have a copy of Cold Sassy Tree? Unbelieveable!!What a great book to read - either this one or Cold Sassy Tree.Highly recommended!!

While I did enjoy reading this book I did not find it as interesting as the first one. I think this is in part because Will is now grown up and he's not having the adventures he had in the first book. The plot was also very different. In the first one you had the huge scandal about grandpa getting remarried to Miss Love, which was a huge deal and that created a lot of turmoil. But there really wasn't any big thing going on in this one...The plot revolves around Will trying to get this one school...

Had Olive Anne Burns lived to finish it, I imagine this book would have been at least almost as good as Cold Sassy Tree. What she did write is good but had she lived, no doubt even that would have been better. Though we have access to her notes for more of the book, they are just random ideas that need fleshed out. The biography half of the book is interesting.

Didn’t need to be written. So so.

While I didn't feel like this book was as good as Cold Sassy Tree, I did enjoy it. It just wasn't the same, but that's ok. I believe that if Olive Ann had lived longer, it would be an undoubtedly better story since she'd have had time to fine tune everything. I wasn't too thrilled with how Will turned out-or his father. That made me a little sad. I also had hoped Love would be in the story more. But, it IS an unfinished work, so who knows what it would have been had she lived longer. I love that...

I liked the beginning of the unfinished book however I'm not sure about the rest of the plot. The final outcome of the plot I like but getting there I'm not crazy about. I liked the reminiscence about the author Olive Ann in some ways more than her unfinished second book.I really liked her father's (Will's model) advise and it sounded a lot like grandpa "Olive proudly proclaimed herself a liberal and was adamant about her opinions, which she aired at every opportunity. Her father told her she wa...

At first I was disappointed with this book. I didn't like where the author took some of the characters from Cold Sassy Tree and was discontented with the fact that there was no ending. However, reading the second half of the book- a reminiscence from the author's editor- was delightful. She explains the theme that the author had planned to instill in the book and how the characters would end up. She also shares the family history of the author and the real-life people who the characters were pat...

An unfinished sequel, well, it leaves you feeling unfinished. What I really liked about this book was reading the "reminiscence" from the editor. What an amazing woman Olive Ann Burns was! I'd read another book just on her.

I really liked this--having loved the original book. But there just wasn't enough of it written before Ms.Burns died. Just a few chapters and some sketchy notes. Too bad.

After reading Cold Sassy Tree, I saw that there was an "unfinished sequel" -- and thought, how intriguing to read a book, knowing it would be incomplete. I knew that Olive Ann Burns had written her first book during treatment for cancer, and that readers had begged for another to continue the story of Will Tweedy and his family. So I went into this book expecting to get a half-story. But by the end I felt like I'd gotten much more than that. Yes, the story of grown-up Will (10 years after the en...

This book was pretty accurately described by the rest of the reviews. The "Time, Dirt and Money" portion of the book that was the actual sequel to Cold Sassy Tree was rather depressing. It seemed like every bad thing that might have happened to the characters did. Seemed a little too over the top and I wasn't sure how she was going to bring it back to be uplifting in the end. The story of Will and Sanna was just sad and so was everyone else's.The rest of the autobiography part was a little too l...

Leaving Cold Sassy contains both the unfinished sequel to Cold Sassy Tree and a biography of Olive Ann Burns' life and death. The fact that the novel isn't complete is sad both because it would've been a great story and because the author seems to have been such a great person. The most touching part of the whole biography was that Olive Ann's children made a blanket of roses for her to be buried on just like Grandpa Blakeslee made for Miss Mattie Lou. Readers can pretty much fill in the blanks

This work perfectly exemplifies why authors finish works and why it matters. There is a lot of smoothing, a lot of guidance that occurs in that editing portion of a work in progress and I discovered that the narrative isn't important enough to me to skip that. I felt the same way about The Last Four Years when I read it as a girl. It was a different story when the author didn't guide it through the last stages of production. It was an entirely different story.I loved Burns' characters but traged...

I was told before I read the book that it was unfinished,but I did not quite grasp what he meant. I reread Cold Sassy Tree and loved it. I immediately read this book. I loved the characters in the first book and looked forward to following their story. The first 1/3 of the book is beginning to continue the story of characters we grew to know and become involved with in Cold Sassy Tree. I was disappointed to find the author dealt with illness for many years, and although she began the sequel, it

If you REALLY loved Cold Sassy Tree...Note that this book is three thing - a mostly finished novel, the notes from that unfinished novel, and a biography of Olive Ann Burns, complete with photos. Combining those elements helps the reader deal with the (frankly) startling notes inserted in the unfinished text. I tend to lose myself in a book, and this one, though rough in a couple of places, was no exception. Marvelous characterization with vivid personalities, quirks, flaws and charms. The “end”...

On July 5, 1906, scandal breaks in the small town of Cold Sassy, Georgia, when the proprietor of the general store, E. Rucker Blakeslee, elopes with Miss Love Simpson. He is barely three weeks a widower, and she is only half his age and a Yankee to boot. As their marriage inspires a whirlwind of local gossip, fourteen-year-old Will Tweedy suddenly finds himself eyewitness to a family scandal, and that’s where his adventures begin. Thus begins "Cold Sassy Tree". Sadly Olive Ann Burns died before

interesting to start a book, knowing that the author didn't finish it. BUT, the last half of the book is if anything, better than the first. In it the author/editor explains how Cold Sassy Tree came to be and the story of Olive Ann Burns - her own story is quite lovely. I expected to leave it feeling unfulfilled but if anything, I wanted to go on reading about her own family. I don't know if the complete sequel would have been as good as Cold Sassy Tree, things changed during the first world war...

I loved reading "Cold Sassy Tree" so I was eager to start reading this sequel. Burns wrote fifteen chapters but then she died of cancer in 1990 after working on the sequel for five years. After herdeath, notes written on envelopes and scraps of paper were found all over her house.Katrina Kenison is an auth0r & was a friend to Olive Burns. Kenison gathered the notes & tried to write the story h0w Burns might have. For the most part, though, she wrote about the life of Burns and her husband.It's s...

It's not fair to say that the book is not quite what I expected, because - as an unfinished sequel, published after the author's death - I'm not sure what I expected. The continuing story of Will Tweedy was good enough; not outstanding. Had Ms. Burns spent eight-and-a-half years completing it (as she did with the first book), I don't doubt it would be a 5-star rated story. What makes this book memorable is the 2nd half, which is the reminiscence of Olive Ann Burns, written by her editor. She - t...

I loved revisiting these characters, and the town of Cold Sassy which is now being called Progressive City. While it’s hard to judge someone’s unfinished work, I didn’t love the direction Ms. Burns was headed with it. I found it drab, and a sad furthering of the story and the characters that were so endearing. I choose to believe once finished she would have changed the trajectory a bit. Grateful to have read it though and I think Cold Sassy Tree is truly one of the best American novels ever wri...

All I can do is cry about the unfairness of the universe and swear to never again get hooked on an author who died before they could finish their wonderful stories. (*cough*Douglas Adams*cough*) This book doesn't have the same level of hilarious dialogue and stellar descriptions of small-town life as the original, I think because it was a rough draft. However it was completely worth the read just to know what happened to all those characters I loved so much.

I really enjoyed this unfinished sequel to Cold Sassy Tree. I only gave it 3 stars because it ends abruptly. But I love the story of Cold Sassy Tree, so much fun, and so many entertaining characters and situations! It was interesting to see the main character, Will Tweedy, ten years after the ending of the first book, and see where his life was headed, even though there was no ending because of the author's death.

yes, it's unfinished alright! nice memoir about Olive Ann Burns that I did thoroughly enjoy. I was not impressed, I am sorry she didn't get more time to actually make the book work. It was rather unsatisfying and I didn't feel like the Will Tweedy I knew and loved was the same Will Tweedy that I was left hanging with. I appreciated all the editorial information at the end that explained where she was going and her life after Cold Sassy so I'm glad I read it.