When mother and daughter Vivi and Siddalee Walker get into a savage fight over a New York Times article that refers to Vivi as a “tap-dancing child abuser,” the fallout is felt from Louisiana to New York to Seattle. A successful theater director, Siddalee panics and postpones her upcoming wedding—so Vivi’s intrepid gang of lifelong girlfriends, the Ya-Yas, sashay in and conspire to bring everyone back together.

In 1932, Vivi and the Ya-Yas were disqualified from a Shirley Temple Look-Alike Contest for unladylike behavior. Sixty years later, they’re still making waves. They persuade Vivi to send Sidda a scrapbook of girlhood mementos titled “Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood”—an album that will reveal more questions than answers as it leads Sidda to encounter the legacy of imperfect love and the unknowable mystery of life.