When I first started reading this, I was unsure of what to make of it. The first chapter is an assault of descriptive words that appear to be a personal ad of sorts. The next chapter is told in the present tense and involves a young girl...so I figured it was a collection of short stories. Wrong again.

What "All this Heavenly Glory" is, is a novel told between the alternating perspectives of a young child and a young woman version of the same character, Charlotte Anne Byers. Charlotte Anne is one of the most endearing characters I've come across in modern day literature; a woman that any reader will connect with and see themselves in. She's smart, funny, insecure and sarcastic..and I adored her.

The book is a quick read..and details the major events in Charlotte Anne's life--from her mother's battle with cancer, to her discovering all there was to learn about the opposite sex. From alcoholism to Hollywood. From New York to Chicago, the book has it all. It's a cute story..I hate the word cute and usually find its usage condescending in some way or other, but in the case of this novel, it works. The story is cute, the main character is real and honest, and the book is very well written. I sincerely enjoyed it.

I found this very difficult to read because of the long run-on sentences. Unfortunately I was not able to finish reading the book because of the author's writing style.

I don't understand the reviews that refer to "Heavenly Glory" as short stories. It's a novel. It has a through-line which may take detours, but that's half the fun of this book. It jumps back and forth chronologically, sort of burning the candles at both ends.
There are times when i was reading this book, that i literally had to scoop my jaw up off the ground. It's an incredibly special and fresh voice describing....well, probably you. It's a cathartic experience, to be sure, to read because it is so nuanced and true that you will probably be looking over your shoulder to make sure Elizabeth Crane isn't spying on you.
I might actually recommend reading this book before When the Messenger is Hot. The two books carry similar themes, and you can definitely see where moments from Messenger get flushed out into fuller vignettes in Glory.

I enjoyed reading Crane's When the Messenger Is Hot and had looked forward to reading another one of her short-story collections. All this Heavenly Glory is somewhat different from When the Messenger Is Hot. This is a collection of connected stories that center on a female character and what she becomes from being a spunky young girl to being quite a cynical adult. The stories are more vignettes based on the one heroine than anything else, but they make great stand-alone tales of their own. This sort of reminds me of Melissa Banks's The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing, only that Crane's style is far more insightful and enlightening than the stuff Banks wrote in her collection. Anyway, my favorite vignettes here are "Howard the Filmmaker," "Notre Monde," "Brooklyn," "Guidelines," and "Football." Even though I agree with the reviewers who consider this book to be "chick-lit," I feel this collection has more depth and spunk than many of the flimsy, superficial stories found in the aforementioned books. I love chick-lit, but there are so many out there that you can no longer find the special ones from the run-of-the-mills. All this Heavenly Glory, however, is definitely one special find and I cannot recommend this book enough. I take away one star because I admit I had expected a collection of stand-alone stories and was somewhat disappointed when I discovered that it was not one. However, the book itself is great.

OK, full disclosure: I am a college friend of the author and might be a touch bias but I ADORED this book. Crane writes the things we think about the world around us but aren't so clever at putting into words. Yes, the sentences can be long but I don't find it disjointed. I find it adorable and effective. Charlotte Ann makes life at all ages fascinating and complicated and just plain old funny. Like, laugh at loud funny. It is a delightful read. And for those of you that say you aren't huge short story fans, this does kind of read like a novel. Would be a great book club selection!