Unfortunately this book wasn’t for me. I just found it not my type of read and I sadly struggled through it.

I was given a NetGalley widget for this one a year ago and I just got around to reading it and dangit it was so good. I am so thankful for the opportunity to have consumed this wildly relevant fictional tale, which felt not at all fictional, more like historical fiction, due to the times. The cover initially was what drew me in, but I'm so thankful to have stuck with it because the outcome was magical. Thank you big time to Knopf, Anne Tyler, and NetGalley for granting me access to this collectors daydream.

Unfortunately, this book wasn't for me. While the story portrayed certain realistic dynamics of family, it was all a bit depressing. The book was broken down into 8 long chapters, each from the point of view from a different member of the family. These chapters, in my opinion, were too long and lacked interesting storylines/information. As you read the book and how distant this family is, you expect for the family to make amends at the end, but in reality, the family remains as distant from one another as possible. To me, this is just a sad thing to think about - a family not wanting to be a family with one another, therefore, this book just wasn't for me.

A beautiful glimpse into the love, heartbreak and humor of family. The novel is set across the timeframe of the 1950s and 2010s.

French Braid follows the Garrett family over several decades. It is a funny and charming story that details the complexities of family life.

An excellent book about family life over a 70 year period. Tyler specializes in portraying families. I very much enjoyed it!

This is not the first book that I have read by Anne Tyler but it is clearly obvious that this is a strong writer. The ability she has to flesh out families and how they function with emotions involved is a joy to read.

The Garrett's are a family of five and the center of this novel. CoVid is at the core of this novel and we follow them as they navigate through their lives concerning it. How it causes separation between family members, chances for a different type of life, how feelings emerge due to children moving on. Having a freshman in college and a senior in high school, reading this hit home in so many ways. CoVid changed our family dynamic and caused some really awful things to take place and family rifts that may or may not be repaired. With that said, it also made us stronger, and I feel that throughout the book too. It is heartfelt and really hits the core of what many families go through. I really enjoyed this one.

while I enjoyed Anne Tyler's breathing lessons and can recognize her craft this book just didn't hit the mark for me. I was only able to make it a little ways in before i gave up on it.

French Braid by Anne Tyler does what Anne Tyler does best - meditations on family life. Told over 70 years and multiple generations/characters, Tyler shares about the lives of a middle-class family in Baltimore - unpacking the ways family members are both independent and interconnected.

Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for sharing this book with me. All thoughts are my own.

Vignettes from the lives of three siblings that drift apart, their parents, and children, from a 1950s vacation to a 2020 pandemic quarantine.

I admire the long view this book takes of a family. However, there is such a fussiness that may have been typified by the Edie McClurg-like narration. I felt a similar thing about Clock Dance, so this lack of strong narrative might be a part of recent Tyler books. I liked Vinegar Girl, but that had a spine of Shakespeare to support it. I guess I just found this kind of dull.

This book was ok. I thought the writing was good but I can't say that I ever connected with the characters. At times I was skimming through the pages just looking for something more.

Ann Tyler is an automatic buy for me when she releases a new book. This novel is like
a family reunion drama that is all too familiar. She writes great characters that leaves an
impact long after you finished the book.

Not my favorite Anne Tyler piece. The story felt too scattered for my liking. I would have liked to see a deeper development for some of the characters and their background stories. Finishing this book, unfortunately, didn’t give me any sort of sense of “completion”. But as always, excited to see what she comes out with next!

This was my first Anne Tyler, and I really enjoyed it. Her writing and storytelling captivated me. Multi-generational stories are my favorite, and her ability to craft fully realized characters, in a "short" book, was just too good.

Anne Tyler never disappoints. Her keen insights into human nature continue to astonish, delight, entertain, and move me. French Braid is the latest in a long line of Tyler novels I have loved.

Anne Tyler never disappoints. Her ability to write characters that are real and engaging is such a skill that few can do. This is such a wonderful example of her fine work.

For a 256-page book, this one felt much longer. It took me a month to get through and when I put it down I was never drawn to pick it back up.

The story started off strongly with two characters who discover their families of origin were very, very different. One was closed, while the other was open, which was bound to create difficulties in their relationship. But then their story is dropped and we go back to 1959. When the story switched to Mercy, I lost interest. I didn't care for her character, and when she did a heinous thing involving a cat, I cared even less what happened to her. (She didn’t kill the cat or physically abuse him, but it was heartless. If you want details before picking up the book, PM me.)

Not much happens and the story meanders along following a family through the generations, but for me, it was too slow, with no story arc to keep it interesting. No one is a villain, but no one is particularly likable either. A line in the book says that families show little kindnesses toward each other and also little cruelties. Which is true, but I don’t want to read a book about it. I could write a book about my own family that would be more interesting. At least I have a few villains to spice up the story!

Near the end of the book a character muses about French braids: “…that’s how families work, too. You think you’re free of them, but you’re never really free; the ripples are crimped in forever.”
It's a rather silly analogy that I don't think a man would ever make. Or a woman.

I’m a huge Anne Tyler fan. She usually writes with an astute understanding of human nature and can write about the ordinary in an extraordinary way. But this one didn’t touch me, as her earlier books did. Many of my friends here loved it, so don’t take my word for it. It's not a bad book, it simply wasn’t for me.

Ann Tyler told us a few years ago that she was quitting after "A Spool of Blue Thread." Thank God, she lied. "French Braid" is the fourth book since her threat, and we are back on familiar ground observing the lives of a middle class Baltimore family. Tyler's genius familiar ground proves to us, over and over, that there is no such thing as a typical American family. To grossly paraphrase Tolstoy, we are all different in our own ways, and Tyler proves it to us again and again with her cool observations of our lives.

We first meet Robin & Mercy on vacation in 1959 with their 3 children in a typical cabin at a wooded lake resort. As usual, Tyler only sketches in each character to give the reader the chance to fill in the blanks as we observe what seem to be boringly typical interactions between husband-wife, siblings and even with some outsiders. It is in these small interactions that the kernels of the future are planted. One of the author’s gifts to lead us to sift through the minutia of lives and note a single action that can weigh on a child for decades, ultimately forming his reactions to others. She sharply observes that even the smallest events can reverberate through the lives of a family and shape their relationships.

The novel has an epic scope for a family saga. Covering 70 years, it is divided into sections from the point of view of one family member, each spanning about 10 years. Marriage is a long-haul commitment, no matter how dysfunctional the marriage or family is, because it still functions. Childhood lessons, good or bad, return to add their force to the family's tale.

The cover art of a braided rug tucks easily into the title of "French Braid." A family is not like a regularly braid where the hair is divided into equal parts at the beginning, but where the hair is divided into small parts at first. Then, with each twist of the small pieces, more hair from the whole is added until the entirety is wound together into a tight or loose finished braid. I loved all her hints throughout including this clever title.

"That’s how families work…You think you’re free of them, but you’re never really free; the ripples are crimped in forever.” Thank you Netgalley, Knopf and Anne Tyler for this advanced reader's copy in exchange for an honest review.

Don't get too attached to Serena who appears in Chapter One. That's the last you see of her until she is briefly mentioned at the end of French Braid. The story centers of her grandparents, Mercy and Robin, and later on, on their three children and several of their grandchildren. But the real heart of the novel is Mercy, a sort of artist. When their nest empties, Mercy surreptitiously moves into her little painter's studio. I say surreptitiously because she never actually tells Robin she has oved out. Her paintings of houses seem unfinished except for one detail that stands out from the rest of it. (No wonder she is not successful, you might conjecture.)

No matter what your experience of your own family is, you will find certain resemblances to people among your own relatives. Often, it seems, the children of one sister are more like those of her sibling, and vice-versa. And traits often skip generations only to appear in future children.

Nothing much really happens, with two exceptions. One is Candle's trip to New York City with her grandmother Mercy to view a gallery opening of Mercy's friend Magda's paintings. In this section, late in the book, Tyler describes those artworks in a way that is reminiscent of one of my favorite jokes, dealing with a painting bought for a million dollars that is all white with a small red dot in the corner. The punchline is in Yiddish. (I'd me happy to share if you ask.)

Nothing much really happens, yet everything happens much the way life does. It goes on and change is gradual until it ends, too soon, and the children and grandchildren cannot identify the people in the photograph album. Memories of childhood come back, though not always accurately.

Then why is this Anne Tyler book worth 4 Stars? Because it is written in her own inimitable way, shining a light on ordinary people who in her fiction are extraordinary.
NetGalley did NOT give me this book as an ARC that I requested. Instead, it was purchased by our library, and I read it from there. In any case, I am reprinting my Goodreads review here.