I have loved her books in the past, but this one not so much. The story just rambled along and went nowhere. It was hard to understand the motives of the main character, Willa. I wanted to know more about why her sons became so indifferent, and why she chose her Peter. Denise was a complete mystery. The story was just too simple to be enjoyable. I would not recommend spending time on this one.

I honestly have to say I was quite disappointed in this novel by the Pulitzer Prize winning novelist, Anne Tyler. As I began reading it, I had to go back to the NetGalley description and make sure the book was an adult novel, not a children's novel. With the simple narrative, sparse descriptions, and short sentences I thought I was reading a 4th grade book. The plot never developed, nor did the driving motivations or internal feelings of the characters. There was no depth to the story and if I wasn't reading it as a galley, I would not have read more than a few chapters, at most. I have read a number of Anne Tyler's books over the years, but found this title very disappointing.

Beginning an Anne Tyler book is like sitting down to listen to a close friend. Her writing and her language put you immediately at ease and invite you into the story. In Clock Dance, the reader experiences the life of Willa through glimpses into relationships with family throughout her life. When Willa steps in to help with virtual strangers she learns how caring a neighbourhood of very different people can be. But can they fill the void Willa feels in her distant relationships with her own family?

This wasn’t my favorite Anne Tyler book. The end just wasn’t for me; it seemed a bit abrupt. That being said, I liked how she acknowledged some of the problems within the city of Baltimore but focused on the characters/people of the city, which has always made Baltimore unique.

I have always loved Anne Tyler's book, and this novel did not disappoint.At first, I wondered what Willa was doing in Tuscon, but once she got to Baltimore she came alive. Like many older women, she needed to reinvent herself and find happiness in this second chance at living.

This novel relates the defining moments in Willa Drake's life--her mother's temporary disappearance when she was a child, a marriage proposal in college, an incident that left her widowed ... and finally a phone call from the neighbor of her son's ex-girlfriend that has the potential to empower Willa to make some choices about how she really wants to live her life.

A sweet story, similar in style to Tyler's other books. As always, Tyler brings her characters to life and let's them work their way into the reader's heart.

Thank you Netgalley for the chance to read this book because my greedy impatient self certainly could not wait until July. Reading Anne Tyler is like going to a new hair stylist when your old one moved. You're seated with a cape on but as you watch her go at your hear with those fancy shiny shears and your hair is flying you just know that you're in good hands.
I have read a lot of Anne Tyler over the years and although I won't do one book after another I know that when I start the first chapter I am taken on a journey of family life and nothing crazy is going to happen but I'm going to recognize a shit ton of human behavior and I"m going to fall in love with a character or two.
This book features one such character named Willa. We meet her at age 11 when she's trying to sell candy with a girlfriend to go on a class trip in 1967. We also learn that her mother has a mood problem and tends to take off when things aren't going her way.
Then we see her after college when she meets who will be her future husband and then again after they have kids and so on.
Without telling what happens, the bulk of the story is about how out of the blue Willa gets a phone call that her son's ex girlfriend has been shot and Willa is needed to fly across the country to help out with her 9 year old daughter. Willa of course is no relation to these people and isn't in touch that often with her son but that doesn't stop her from going.
Sounds kind of weird but it works so well.
This was a story I couldn't wait to get back to. My heart of hearts is always adoring a domestic fiction story, especially when it's crafted by a master.

Willa lets an unexpected phone call turn into an adventure that changes her life. I love the unexpected bravery that leads her into finally becoming her true self. I could learn a thing or two from Willa.

Anne Tyler is the queen of making much ado about nothing in the best possible way, No one else has her gift of taking a mundane setting and making it into something meaningful and beautiful. How else would a story about an upper-class, unrecognized and unappreciated, co-dependent woman and her emotionally distant son's distinctly middle-class ex-girlfriend and unrelated, daughter turn into a beautiful story of becoming and belonging? Only Anne Tyler magic makes that happen.

Clock dance is the story of Willa, a physically abused child, and an emotionally stunted adult. Having learned early not to rock the boat, she marries an emotional bully, and when he dies, soon marries another. Her sons are grown and have gone into the world with little further connection to Willa. The most meaningful relationship in her life is with the saguaro cactus in her backyard.

Until one day, the phone rings unexpectedly. Someone has been shot. Can she come?

What follows is the most understated adventure of a lifetime I have ever encountered. As Willa cares for people she barely knows, traveling from a shabby living room, around an unfamiliar neighborhood block, and back and forth between the supermarket and a local elementary school, Willa learns the landscape of being in healthy relationships, feeling loved and appreciated, and finally a place she can call her own, even when there is the occasional conflict.

Clock Dance is an unexpected study of a woman solidly in the middle part of life learning to find meaning in the spaces a young family once filled and learning to understand herself and her needs without always feeling the need to apologize for them. Surrounding her is a funny, endearing, and entirely relatable cast of characters who made me laugh, and made me hope for more for Willa's life.

Superbly well written character study. Willa is a heroine in the true classic sense. The structure of the book was unique and the rendering of
the Baltimore neighbors/neighborhood was priceless, Willa makes substantial choices that come from a well of an inner life. Some of the time
she knows what is best not to say. So sad to finish the book as it will no doubt be a best of the year type read

Anne Tyler only gets better with age. "Clock Dance" has a very funny little edge--her observation of Willa's husbands will make you laugh out loud--and the crowd of oddball, fallible, appealing characters are what we love about her writing.

Willa and her second husband Peter have retired to Tucson, a place Willa never imagined living. She gets a call from a woman in Baltimore saying that she has to come right away to take care of her son's ex-girlfriend's daughter--the ex-girlfriend has been shot and Willa better get there right away. Where did the neighbor get her number? It was on the wall, or on a piece of paper, the neighbor says, as if this is where all phone numbers are.

Willa wants to go, and her husband insists on coming too (and, of course, pouts and grumps the entire trip) and Willa enters Anne Tyler world; a weedy neighborhood of diverse neighbors, people who are interested in each other and everybody watches a show called Space Junk. There's a hunky neighbor called Sir Joe, and his teen relative Erland who has "whole slinky toys" of curly hair.

You'll have to read it to find out what the clock dance is. Such a lovely book, satisfying and fun, that makes you think about your life.

It pains me to say this - I have been reading Tyler for several decades - but I really didn’t find her latest novel very compelling. The characters were not well developed and I found the main character to be most annoying. The ending in particular was completely unrealistic and unsatisfying and completely predictable. I know Tyler is known for her exploration of human interactions and relationships but this novel did little to engage me in the characters or the superficial storyline that brought them together. I wasn’t sure where she was going with the story of the main character’s childhood but it was never fully explained why her mother was so unstable. I would not use this book as an introduction to Tyler -her earlier novels are much better.

LOVED this book. I am from Maryland and I am very familiar with Baltimore. I have read every Ann Tyler book and can say that I have enjoyed every one of them. Will definitely recommend to my patrons and friends.

There is a special joy in reading a book by Anne Tyler. Once again, we are reminded of kindness, patience and the never-ending ability to find happiness, even in unlikely places.

Willa is a woman who has spent her life pleasing people, always around those who are hard to please. From her mother to her husbands, she has always put her needs on hold.

Tyler tells Willa’s story when a totally random phone call changes the trajectory of her life. She travels to Baltimore to take care of a rather extraordinary child whose mother is hospitalized after being hit by a stray bullet.

Tyler has such a wonderful way of describing her characters that I found myself being enchanted by the cast of eccentrics that surround Willa as she cares for her non-grandchild. I loved the picture that Tyler draws of the awkward and totally lovable pre-teenager, Cheryl and her decidedly strange mother Denise.

Most of all, I love the slow unwinding of Willa during her weeks of self-discovery. It reminds me of Delia Grinstead in LADDER OF YEARS when the simple acts of independence freed her from the tyrannies of her family. Willa gains her independence when she finally recognizes her ever condescending and grumpy spouse., for exactly who he is. It is a simple comment from her son that allows Willa to clear out her cobwebs and gain insights about husband and her life.

Finally, Willa can please herself, but within that context I feel confident that her warmth and goodness will affect the lives of those lucky enough to be around her.

This book left me full of love and hope. Reading Tyler is always like being hit with a tranquilizer dart, her books leave me calm and enthralled. I cannot wait to share this with my book clubs.

Anne Tyler's books are all about character, and Clock Dance is no exception. Willa Drake has been defined by the several incidents that happened to her: her mother's erratic behavior and disappearance when she was a preteen, being proposed to at 21, a proposal she accepted despite not being prepared to marry and move far from family, friends, and the college education she left unfinished for many years, her husband's death when she was 41 and her remarriage several decades later. Her two sons also seem to have happened to her. She seems to have been living life according to a plan such as those found in supermarket magazines of the time: marry, produce children, grow old. But, Willa has a chance to alter the plan. Through some miscommunication, she finds herself flying from Arizona to Baltimore (where the author likes to place her characters), with her reluctant second husband in tow, to take care of her oldest son's former girlfriend's daughter while she, the former girlfriend, recovers from an accidental gunshot wound. It's in this modest neighborhood that Willa finds and defines herself for the first time in her life. The woman who followed routines and did what was expected of her now offers herself to others and finds the stuff of which she really is made. Towards the end of the book, the 9-year old girl she is taking care of and her two friends perform a clock dance, rigid and defined by the steady sounds of the tick-tock heard in analog clocks. Willa, finally beginning to understand herself, thinks that if she were to invent a clock dance it wouldn't look like that one at all. "...hers would feature a woman racing across the stage from left to right. all the while madly whirling so that the audience saw only a spinning blur of color before she vanished into the wings..." Once again Anne Tyler's deft writing and insightful character analysis help us understand Willa and ourselves in ways we might not have thought possible. It is a privilege to take this journey with her. Clock Dance is among the best of Tyler's long output.