4.5*
Ann Patchett is a treasure. Her writing is effervescent and insightful. She has the ability to take readers inside the world of her characters and live their reality. Though not action packed, she makes the everyday life of her characters riveting and engaging.

Tom Lake is set during the pandemic. Lara and her husband have their three adult daughters staying with them at their cherry orchard. The girls want their mom to tell the full story of her youthful relationship with a famous actor. Lara agrees to recount how she met and fell for Peter Duke. She begins her story with her first acting role in the play Our Town. It launched her budding career as an actress which ultimately led to her living in Michigan and performing for a production company called Tom Lake. Lara was young and full of promise. She found the charming co-star Duke to be very enticing. The story of her romance was memorable and her children are fascinated with all the juicy details.

Just as the daughters are moved by the revelations of things they never knew, readers will also become captivated by the story. We are all part of Lara’s entranced audience, waiting for the next part of the story to unfold.

To read Patchett is to be invited into her fictional landscape that is beautifully brought to life by the narration of the phenomenal Meryl Streep. The writing is effortless yet stunning. This is another impressive title from a gifted writer.

Strong character development and an engaging plot told in a series of flashbacks will keep readers turning the page. Enjoyable read

Such a fun read, really I have no notes. I don't usually enjoy media that references covid (it tends to be jarring/isn't living it enough!?), but I actually very much enjoyed this premise. The storytelling was warm and nostalgic and the family dynamic was giving Little Women a bit. Truly a joy to read; fairly low stakes and yet so compelling.

Ann Patchett writes such beautiful stories! I was hooked from the beginning, as I read this novel of a mother telling her three grown daughters about her own youth, specifically a summer doing stock theater at Tom Lake. The setting of the cherry farm in MI was absolutely gorgeous and peaceful. And the combination of Ann Patchetts beautiful sentences and Meryl Streep's voice doing the narration for the audiobook could not have been more perfect.

Having daughters of my own, I connected with this on a personal level as well, thinking of sharing stories from my past with them someday.
A thoroughly enjoyable read!!

Thank you to Harper and Netgalley for the ebook arc. All opinions are my own.

I absolutely loved this book!! The story gave me Little Women vibes and I adored the characters! This is the story of a woman looking back on her life and sharing her past with her three daughters who are home during the Pandemic. It evoked so much nostalgia and caused me to reminisce about my own first love. Patchett is a genius at creating characters that you feel are friends. I highly recommend this book!

The setting and characters are so beautifully written. It was definitely one ultimate full five stars read for me.

Tom Lake is an absolute gem! It is a lovely, warm slice-of-life novel told by Lara, a former actress and mother of three girls. In the present timeline, Lara and her adult daughters are home on the family cherry tree farm waiting out the days of the 2020 pandemic. Lara is telling the story of her life to her daughters, who knew that once upon a time she had dated mega movie star Duke. The past timeline follows Lara as she seemingly falls into acting on a whim and ends up going to LA and then Michigan for a summer theater run of Our Town.

The novel brings you in right away and seamlessly moves between the timelines, with impatient daughters jumping in to the past story to ask questions and emote about the things they never knew about their mother. It is a coming of age story for both mother and daughters, and it is an awesome reminder that our mothers were once young and unknowable too.

Highly recommended for anyone who likes a family story or for anyone who has ever watched their life head down a path that diverged from their youthful fancies.

Tom Lake finds a family sheltering together on an orchard in Northern Michigan during the pandemic and the grown daughters of the house have questions for their mother who once dated a later Oscar winning actor when they shared the stage at a summer stock festival. It’s a moving story of coming of age and the moment that define us.

Ann Patchett has yet to disappoint. She is a writer who consistently delivers thoughtful and carefully written work. Tom Lake isn't a page turner with an exciting plot but it is still a great novel. This is a reflective work of fiction which uses characters (always fully rendered) to show the way life moves and changes. This includes relationships, career choices, choice of where to live and the effect of parenting on marriage and life. I really enjoyed this.

A compelling story of how we get to where we are. It was a beautifully layered story that allowed the reader to witness the mother showing herself to her daughters but also allowed us into some secrets that she only kept for herself. I love how it centered the complexities of identity. I'm not sure about the ending - still wondering why it landed the way it did. Was it too nice of a finish? Or do sometimes those moments that define us continue as tiny threads through it all?

Lara tells the story of her relationship with the famous actor, Duke, to her three daughters. Emily is the oldest, engaged and hoping to stay on the Michigan cherry farm; Maisie hopes to be a vet, and Nell wants to be an actress. All three are home due to the pandemic, and are engrossed in the story of their mother’s acting background, and the story of how she met their father, Joe. Well written, as Patchett has a way with words, but somehow lacking in the emotional impact I was expecting. A strong start, slow middle, and an interesting bunch of twists in the last part of the book. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

Ann Patchett has done it* again

*written a beautiful novel

Warm, funny, heartbreaking, beautiful, I loved this.

I completely adored this book, Patchett's best. This story reminds us that the quiet and mundane are where we find contentedness and peace. Although a gentle, character-driven novel, there were unexpected reveals throughout that pulled the reader through the disorientation that is summer love.

Tom Lake is now my favorite Ann Patchett book! I read it in print but now I want to listen to Meryl Streep read it!

During the pandemic, Lara's three daughters return home to help on the family cherry farm. To help pass the time, they beg her to tell the story of the summer she was an actress in a theater company called Tom Lake and dated an actor who went on to be famous, Peter Duke.

The story pivots between their time together on the farm and Lara's summer at Tom Lake. Patchett intertwines these into a beautiful narrative combining family dynamics with lost love and moving on from your past. Her daughters see a side of her they've never seen before and it makes them look into their own hearts.

I give this one ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5 stars! Lara's insight into her past and the way the story is told is amazing. I love her current family dynamics and the way Patchett paints it as so picturesque, but not without angst and glimpses into the mother-daughter battle. And the story of her past will keep you begging for more just like her girls. This one is a must read for literary fiction fans!

Thank you to @netgalley and @harperbooks for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review!

Set during the pandemic, a story within a story told to adult children about a chapter in the lives of their mother. No spoilers here, but this is a feel good winner of a novel.

I wasn’t sure I would enjoy a book on such a thin premise, but I fell right down the rabbit hole of this world and loved every minute. Family secrets. The tension of children growing into adults and starting their own lives. Painful memories crossed with beautiful ones. I feel like I know this family now.

I picked up and put down the book many times thinking reading slowly would make it linger longer. Not enough superlatives for the
writing style and character driven plot. So much of fiction doesn’t work as the ties to place get erased in the modern sameness of cities and
as more and more the foundation of home and heart are rendered trivial in the common culture. Lara Emily Nell and Maisie seem grounded
and memorable in a similar way as the iconic characters in Little Women. Duke, Joe and Sebastian are fully realized and if not equally well rendered..very close. The stream of consciousness feel was engaging and propelled the story forward. The ability Ann Patchett has to write about anything in the most literate absorbing way is fascinating.

Tom Lake🌼 by Ann Patchett
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What a treat this book was. This book starts in 2020, amid Covid-19 lockdown where Lara Kenison and her husband Joe are trying to keep up with the cherry orchard thanks to help from their three daughters.
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Since they’re spending a lot of time together, the girls begin asking about their mother’s early twenties, her acting career and her great love with actor Peter Duke. Her acting claim to fame comes from her star role in the production of Our Town.
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Ann’s writing always asks you to “sit down and stay awhile” and that’s exactly what I did with this family and these characters.
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I read this months ago and ended up listening to it via @librofm again because Meryl Streep is such a treat. My only regret was not brushing up a little more on Our Town, as it had been many years since reading it- however- it is definitely not a requirement to read it ahead of Tom Lake.

Another absolutely wonderful book by the amazing Ann Patchett. Cherry farms, Our Town, sisters, daughters, Michigan, all come together in this beautifully written story. I can't wait for her next one!

Thank you NetGalley and Harper for an ARC of " Tom Lake" by Ann Patchett. One of the reasons I love her writing is she creates a narrative that completely takes. you away from reality and drops you in a different world. This novel is no different with the story focusing on Lara, a cherry farmers wife and mother of three college aged girls, who are home due to the pandemic. They always knew that their mom dated a very famous actor back when she did theatre at Tom Lake, and now since they have nothing but time to hear the story, they make her regal them with stories of her first love. I really did love this book, but I found myself not NEEDING to pick it up which isn't typical for me.