I saw so excited to receive this after i saw tons of great early reviews. I guess i am in the minority here but i could not get into this.

I love anything by Ann Patchett and Tom Lake was no exception. It was beautiful and moving. Felt with family, love and growing up.

"Tom Lake" by Ann Patchett is a Woman's Story Within a Family Story!

This is Lara's story of a summer long ago spent in summer stock theater at Tom Lake where, in her early twenties, she fell in love with an extremely handsome fellow actor named Peter Duke.

It's also the story of Lara's family, her husband Joe, their three daughters, Emily, Maisie, and Nell, and their life together on the farm and fruit orchard that's been in their family for generations.

It's the Spring of 2020 with the Pandemic in full swing and all three adult daughters are home. It's cherry picking time which calls for all-hands-on-deck from this family since there's limited help due to the shutdown.

Emily, Maisie, and Nell are fascinated and curious about their mother's past as an actress who shared the stage and a relationship with a famous movie star. They're begging to hear everything about it.

Since they're all together in one spot and Lara is sufficiently worn down by her daughters pleas, they all continue to pick cherries in their orchard while Lara begins to tell them her story...

"Tom Lake" is a story within a story. It's about choices and relationships, coming to terms with the choices you make, the relationships you build on, and the ones you don't. It's about planning for and living an intentional life.

When I read "The Dutch House" I struggled to connect with this author's writing style. It felt dry, unemotional, and lacked the passion I anticipated. I had a similar experience with Tom Lake and although it was better at the midway point and at the end, it still ebbed and flowed for me.

The last twenty-percent of this book completely held my attention and the ending fit the characters and the story like a glove. It's important for an author to end with something for the reader to chew on and Ann Patchett did exactly that.

What I love about "Tom Lake" are the central characters. They are diverse, fully fleshed out, and interesting. I cared about and fell in love with all of them. I especially love Joe. Everyone needs someone like Joe in their life. This author certainly knows how to create wonderful characters, good ones and not so good ones. All aboard!

I'm glad this author has such a strong following with many positive reviews and high ratings for this book. I like "Tom Lake" but I don't love it and I was expecting a better reading experience than I had. I do plan to listen to one of Patchett's previous books via audiobook to see if a different format will change how I feel about her writing overall. Maybe, maybe not, but I'm willing to try.

3.5⭐

Thank you to NetGalley, Harper, and Ann Patchett for an ARC of this book. It has been an honor to give my honest and voluntary review.

One of the most lush, nostalgic, pithy, and deeply poignant novels I’ve read in 2023. Every sentence is a work of art, and is so clearly carefully crafted to take you to the Michigan cherry farm where our story is set. I’ve never felt so all consumed by a setting in a novel before. I loved the flashbacks and shifts in time, and how the narrator was almost reciting a poem as she bounced from her early 20s to her 50s— telling her daughters about her brief love affair with a now famous movie star. It’s hard for me to fall in love with each of the characters in a book especially when some are so unlikable and unstable. But Patchett really knows how to unearth the exoskeleton of a character… she does it so slowly, and gradually; it feels like an erosion of the landscape—The place you thought that you knew so well changed so dramatically but quietly and over time you’re not sure what you’re left with. I love how Patchett touches on the pandemic, and how it seem to crystallize us, allowing us to look back on moments in our history, that have largely been left unturned, untold.. I love her commentary on memory—some events that make up the fabric of our life, that once felt so powerful and painful fades with time…bleached by the sun, and no longer holding prominence in our memory. I feel like I’ve always had this conversation with myself, and never before have been able to articulate what it means to look back on things that once felt so big but now feel inconsequential, but important in a new and quiet way. This is one of my favorites of the year. Read it!

I really enjoyed this much anticipated book. I loved the setting and all the characters. The book was well written and unfolded in a way that kept the reader engaged.

Only a brilliant writer could make this story so compelling - I'm hesitating to describe it because I might make it sound boring. So all I'm going to say is that I found it very moving and beautiful and loved the characters. My favorite Ann Patchett novel by far.

I adore Ann Patchett's books and Tom Lake is no exception! This story is beautifully written and offers the reader an insightful look at how we grow through hard times, how family relationships can leave their mark on us, and that love, in its many forms, is what drives us and makes us human. Thank you to Harper Collins for allowing me to read this gem in advance!

Ann Patchett does no wrong in my eyes! This was lovely, heartfelt, moving, and warm. A bit more plain than Patchett usually writes, but just as delightful and thought-provoking.

Not one of my most favorite readings ever. It was certainly interesting to read the account of what happened at Tom lake and get to know the characters but I found the storyline a little bit lacking.

The retelling of the cherry orchard, during COVID, well not exactly correct but definitely some similarities. Set during the summer months this book moves languidly along as a good summer day does. The retelling of one’s life experiences-the people touched, the people left behind. A good summer read in a classic literary style

In the spring of 2020, Lara's three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake.

As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.

I loved Tom Lake. I loved the dual timelines. It’s a gentle, cozy story and I was immediately enthralled. What do we tell our kids about our lives before we had them? What do we keep for ourselves? Such a thoughtful book about Lara’s honest look back at her life.

It’s cherry-picking season in Michigan during COVID and recent events have not only brought Lara’s three twenty-something daughters back home but have stirred up memories as her daughters inquire about her earlier life. These memories, formed during her summer at Tom Lake, remind her of how remarkably different her life could have been. Lara’s perspective is refreshing, but not without flaws.

Set on a cherry orchard at the height of the pandemic, Tom Lake is that book that makes you hope it never ends. Lara Nelson was once an aspiring actress, discovered when she played Emily in her town’s production of Our Town. She films one movie and while waiting for it to be released she goes off to do Our Town at Tom’s Lake, a summer stock theater company. Almost the whole novel is Lara’s retelling of that summer to her three grown daughters who have returned home as the world shut down. Beautifully written, realistically told. I loved this one so much

What a gift it is to read a new novel by Ann Patchett! I loved this book so much. It had everything I expect from Ann-a beautiful story, excellent character development, wonderful writing...just perfect. I look forward to recommending this title to our library patrons.

I never have any idea what I'm going to get when I pick up a new Ann Patchett book, but I always rip through them. I enjoyed this one a lot, maybe 4.5 stars even, a sad-happy sort of fairy tale about acting and youth and love and drama and refusing to regret the lost past and almost succeeding. I really need to see a production of Our Town sometime, and I also REALLY wish I could see Peter Duke's oscar-winning performance in The Promised Man even though it tragically does not exist. Plays into the Tortured Asshole Hero trope and doesn't quite escape romanticizing it, but still, a very good read.

In the spring of 2020, Lara is grateful. Her family is safe and all three of her adult daughters are at home. As they work harvesting cherries at the family’s Michigan orchard, Lara recounts the summer she spent at Tom Lake playing Emily in Our Town. The girls, Emily, Maisie, and Nell, are really interested in her summer affair with movie star Peter Duke. As present life carries on amid a global pandemic, Lara recounts her youth and her brief time as an actress. As the story progresses, the bond between the women grows deeper.

Patchett has created an authentic, emotional story about first loves, lasting loves, family, and dreams. This story surprised me, as I thought it was just fine, but then one day I realized it seeped into my soul. I was as deeply invested in Lara’s story as her daughters. There were a few surprises but as Lara looks back on her life and the choices she made, I realized how thought-provoking the story is. Lara was able to realize at a young age that her future as an actress wouldn’t fulfill her and she chose a different path. Many would be swept up in the fame and allure, not realizing that a Michigan cherry orchard was her destiny.

Cherry comparisons are of course inevitable given the running theme of harvesting the fruit and the novel’s sweet richness. Patchett triumphs again with this deftly woven, cherishable portrait of a woman’s choices and a charismatic man’s demise. Three sisters, the cherry orchard - there are cute jokes here too, but overall it’s an intensely satisfying narration of appealing themes done with sincerity. I’m predicting a big hit.

Ann Patchett is a wonderful story teller as is the main character, Lara, in her new book, “Tom Lake”. Lara, her three daughters, and her husband are picking cherries on the family farm racing to get it done before they spoil. The girls ask for the story of when their mom was a summer stock actress at Tom Lake along with Duke, now a famous movie star. The story which unfolds over several days is cleverly interwoven with Lara’s life story and is beautifully written. The relationships between Lara and her daughters and their relationship with one another as well as Lara’s relationship with her husband, Duke and several other characters is revealed in an intriguing manner. I hated to finish this book and I fell in love with so many of the characters. I’m a fan of Patchett’s books and this one certainly did not disappoint.

Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this book.

I know I speak for many of us in saying I've been looking forward to a new release from Ann Patchett. TOM LAKE certainly does not disappoint.

The setting in northern Michigan gives a nice "everyday" kind of feeling to the narrative, and the orchard manages to be real and cozy at the same time. I like how the pandemic plays a role, but is not absolutely central to the novel. For example, the pandemic explains why the 3 grown daughters are living at home. But the novel doesn't dwell on it. It makes so much sense that during this "pause" period the daughters grow curious about their mother's life before she married their father. The mother's past relationship with a famous movie star is certainly intriguing and keeps the pages turning.

Patchett's writing is wonderful, as always. Absolutely wonderful.

Exactly what I love about an Ann Patchett novel--lovely prose, fascinating characters, a plot that moves, insight, tender humor, and leaves the reader with a deep sigh and gentle introspection.