I really enjoyed Cook's previous novel HOW TO BURY YOUR BROTHER. It was all about family relationships and this theme is also followed in LEARNING TO SPEAK SOUTHERN, although in a very different tone. In SPEAK SOUTHERN, Cook show us a complex and difficult mother-daughter relationship and slowly exposes the basis for discord. In the past few years, there have been a number of excellent novels about daughters who learn about their mother's past lives and Cook adds one more to the pile with SPEAK SOUTHERN All of the characters were well-developed and the plot flowed naturally with a satisfying conclusion.