Nationally syndicated columnist Rheta Grimsley Johnson turns her sharp eye on herself in this frank, exhilerating, wise, poignant, and brave memoir. Her territory ranges from childhood memories of ritual pre-interstate trips in the family station wagon to visit foot-washing Baptist relatives to young-girl fixations on the Barbie dolls of the title, from the simultaneous exuberance and proto-feminist doubts of young marriage to the aches and loves lost through divorce and death. This is a big-hearted book that will leave no reader unaffected.