April 28, 2022
Scarlett: The Sequel to Gone with the Wind
by Alexandra Ripley
Trigger Warning: Includes crude language, sexist and racist beliefs, depictions of violence, sexual content, and other potentially disturbing themes related to the post-Civil War era.
If you think our last book recommendation, Gone with the Wind, ended too abruptly, then you may be satisfied to know there were numerous sequels made. Shortly after original author Margaret Mitchell’s death, Alexandra Ripley was permitted by the family to write a sequel. Ripley’s 1991 Scarlett picks up right where the 1936 novel left off, leaving you right in the emotional wreckage dumping ground that is now Scarlett’s post-Civil War existence.While Scarlett’s hard work to keep her plantation, Tara, afloat is mostly paying off finance-wise, life still isn’t perfect by any means. Still mourning the deaths of her daughter Bonnie and sister-in-law Melanie Wilkes, as well as her failed marriage to Rhett, she’s now battling against her very own kin to find out where she fits in in this new world. And when she connects with her O’Hara family members in Georgia, burning other bridges along the way, it leads her to believe this may be with the rest of her father’s relatives in Ireland. So, with Mitchell’s story still fresh in our minds, it’s time we begin again on the road to Scarlett’s seemingly impossible search for happiness and belonging (which, in her eyes, definitely includes Rhett). Written in the same narrative style as the first and again with a culturally rich background, reading Scarlett will feel like you never left the story in the first place. And, for better or worse, I don’t yet know, there’s always the 1994 mini-series if you become weary from page-turning.