Can’t Wait to Get to Heaven
What a wonderful book! I love Fannie Flagg and Can’t Wait to Get to Heaven
is just another great read. There is no way to write a review without being a spoiler so please forgive me.
Fannie Flagg returns readers to a small community first introduced in Standing in the Rainbow. Elmwood Springs is a town where everyone knows everyone…and their business. The focus of the book is Aunt Elner. She is as curious as three year old and lives life one day at a time. Aunt Elner appreciates people for who they are and impacts many lives, including those who think she is totally off her rocker. After being stung by bees and falling off a ladder while picking figs, Aunt Elner takes a journey to Heaven where she meets her sister Ida, Ginger Rogers, and her hero, Thomas Edison. The Creators take the form of Neighbor Dorothy and her husband Raymond. (They like to be familiar faces to the new arrivals.) Surprised, but not shocked, Aunt Elner takes her death very well and is excited about learning life’s mysteries. Much to her disappointment, it was not her “time” and she had to return to Earth where she brought advice for the rest: Good things are coming and life is what you make it. Should be simple enough really, but us Earthly beings like to take the drivers seat when we should scoot over and enjoy the ride. Those who were informed of her adventure questioned her sanity, but they were curious.
Aunt Elner takes each day as it comes, even if that day is seemingly her last. Her death impacted all the lives she had touched. People who met her didn’t forget her, or what she taught them. I don’t think people realize how many lives they touch or that they have the ability to make or break the day for another. On the other hand they have the ability to allow someone else to make or break their own day. If there is a moral to be learned in this book, I think it is the impact we have on others and ourself. We get so caught up in the self that we do not stop to enjoy what we are working so hard for.
From Fannie Flagg’s website:
Reading Can’t Wait to Get to Heaven is like taking an antidote to the almost constant stream of bad news that surrounds us in our modern world. Tot voices something we all feel: “I always try to put on a happy face, but it’s getting harder and harder to keep up a good attitude…..Nostradamus, CNN, all the papers, according to them, we are on the brink of total annihilation at any second.” How did this novel make you feel about the state of the world today?
Elmwood Springs is a town that we can all relate to. Each character can represent someone in your own life. That is what is so attractive about this work. In a comment Maggie mentioned that this was called the feel good book of the year. It is deserving of the title, but I think it is also a book for self-reflection. My favorite quote is “life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.” If we go through life trying to control everything, or blindly working to achieve our goals, we miss out on much of the good that life does have to offer. Much of the world is success driven. There is nothing wrong with success or pursuing it…but in the pursuit take in the world around or it is going to pass you by, making the pursuit pointless.
On top of the simplicity of life, Can’t Wait to Get to Heaven deals with relationships, conflict, and secrets. Anyone who reads can find something familiar. It is a quick read filled with wit and humor. Much enjoyed….
***I’m flat out exhausted. This will probably be edited and added to after much sleep and thought. 
June 29 2007 12:14 am | Southern Reading Challenge
June 29th, 2007 at 4:25 pm
thanks for the review, I have to admit that I’ve not read any of Flagg’s book (they seem to chic-lit like, I suppose)
June 29th, 2007 at 5:38 pm
Pretty much
She is entertaining though.
July 2nd, 2007 at 7:56 am
That was a good book. While not her best, it was still really good.
Elmwood Springs is such a fun place. I really hope that she will return to it more often!
July 2nd, 2007 at 2:08 pm
JP, I just finished gods in Alabama by Joshilyn Jackson…really good read.
July 5th, 2007 at 2:20 pm
I haven’t read this author, but will based on your review. Thank you.
August 9th, 2007 at 10:48 pm
Great review and I love her down home humor! So glad you are reading fun Southern books!