thank you Net Galley for a copy of French Braid by Anne Tyler. This book came out in March 2022. I'm a few months late to review. This story was ok, but just not for me. I suppose I am steering away from Women's Fiction.

French Braid follows the ups and downs and secrets of the Garrett family. With family dramas like this, I tend to find myself asking - are these likable people and is this a likable family? Maybe not but I think they’re realistic. No one is followed around every day and shares all of their most intimate moments. If we did have that experience, I bet others would ask this same question. In that regard, it was nice to follow a family that wasn’t picture perfect.

Sometimes the POV switching felt a little too quick back and forth but I didn’t really mind it. I know that type of book format isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. I did find it to be a quick read.

This was my first read by Anne Tyler and I have another one from her backlist already sitting on my bookshelf and I’m looking forward to reading more from her after reading French Braid.

Thank you to Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group and NetGalley for the advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

I had never read an Anne Tyler book before this one and if they are all of the same caliber, then I have been missing out! I laughed and cried and really felt like a part of this family as the decades marched on.

Thank you, #Netgalley, for an advanced copy of this book. This is my honest review...What an interesting novel; this is my first by Anne Tyler and wow, is her style unique. For being such a short book, it took me quite a while to get through, but not because it was bad. This was a slow, sometimes somber, exploration of family life. It is told as a family saga with very long chapters, each one being something of a vignette about members of the same family during different decades of their lives. I found the characters and the writing to be hyperbolic and satirical, the dialogue and characters painted in exaggerated ways. This wasn't a bad thing. I truly enjoyed it, although it slowed at times in the middle. It had me in tears by the end and I loved being a fly on the wall of this quirky family. Distinct style for sure; not for everyone, but I'm intrigued to read back Anne Tyler's backlist.

We start in 1959 with the Garrett family (father Robin, mother Mercy and their three children - Alice, Lily, and David) taking their one and only vacation. Although vacations are often a time for families to be together and explore or relax together, the Garrett's seem like strangers to one another. The ripple effect of this vacation weaves through the family, like a 'French braid,' for decades.

When David, age 7 on the vacation, leaves for college, Robin and Mercy are faced with the empty next and Mercy sees an opportunity to expand her art studio. She does so slowly, hoping her husband won't notice. Of course he does, but he doesn't say anything - such is the nature of their family.

Alice and Lily maintain a strong connection to their parents, but David has avoided the family. Even when he gets married, the family learns of it through other means. But slowly we learn more about David, as well as the family, and how we are sometimes shaped by events early in family life.

Ever since I read Anne Tyler's Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant back in the early 1980's I've been a tremendous fan of Tyler's work. I believe that she is one of the greatest writers - able to make ordinary, extraordinary.

I think that I once wrote that Tyler captures what it means to be human better than any other writer since Shakespeare, but I think that it's more than about being human - she captures and comments on what it means to be family. Every family has its secrets and Tyler exploits these secrets to show how people, in general, react to being individuals and members of a family unit.

There is humor and drama, bickering and love. Presumably, we all recognize some aspects of our own lives and families in French Braid, possibly thinking how glad we are that we aren't this dysfunctional, or perhaps wondering how we can be as together as the Garrett's. And this is part of the charm - Tyler isn't steering us to make a specific discovery - she's presenting, laying it out there for the reader to make the discoveries that are unique to each of us, based on our own family experiences.

Looking for a good book? French Braid by Anne Tyler shows us that Tyler is still at the top of her game writing about people and families.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

This is the story of the Garrett family from their one time vacation in the 1950s to their present day lives. Mercy and Robin and Lily and Alice and David — they’re a family and yet they are all motivated by such different things, experiencing life in such different ways.

One of the things I love about Anne Tyler’s books is that they’re quiet page-turners focused on the seemingly mundane yet getting to the heart of exactly what matters to us as humans: identity, love, family. The complications of being a person filled with often silent emotions no one else knows, the judgments only family can pronounce without a single word (or in a single look!), the difficulty of being who you are in the midst of a story that was written before you and will continue long after you’re gone. These are the things that make us who we are and they’re the currents we all find ourselves a part of even when we try to get away.

More than once this made me recall my own family - my mother and her siblings who somewhat resemble the Garrett siblings in the way they grow out and apart, but are still held together by invisible bonds. Tyler has a gift for taking the immutable aspects of family and reflecting them with grace and love.

It made me cry just a little! Not so hard these days, but still.

Lovely book about family and the twisted bonds that carry over from generation to generation, loosening and tightening along the way. Author Anne
Tyler doesn't hit readers over the head with her theme, or even really give a nod to the title until close to the end, and that's fine. I came away feeling heartened that damage can be healed and that "family" is a lot of different things.

French Braid tells the story of the Garrets. A family that seems to be an all american family. After the death of their mother the children learn of a secret that they are shocked to learn. The story focuses on the mother who escaped the island she was born on and her travels to get where she was.
This is an emotional story that spans through years,
It was a great read and I will read more books by this author.

I liked this, just wasn't in love with it. Maybe a 3.5 for me personally.

The metaphor of the french braid is posed toward the end of the book, and it's an apt one for this story. To extend the metaphor, for me this braid was woven well, nice and tight--I was able to see the through lines between all of the family members at various points of their lives and how they interconnect--however the final braid itself wasn't that attractive to me. All of those stories didn't seem to add up to much, in my personal opinion.

However the writing of this book was lovely and the characters, well-rendered with vivid interior lives. And if that's primarily what you're looking for in a story, you'll be happy with this one.

However, much of what drives these characters remained illusive. Why does David dislike his family? Why did Mercy leave her husband? The answers to these and other questions are hinted at, but the reasons remain complex and slightly vague (I suppose, in that way, they resemble real life). But for me, this vagueness left me wanting more.

No, I wasn't looking for a central trauma or inciting event, but I wanted more meat on the bones to understand why I should care about this family and their actions, (especially when they do things that are unkind). This was particularly true for the parents.

I think this book left me wanting more, which was frustrating because it was a longish read that explored a lot of terrain. For me personally, it perhaps wasn't the terrain I was most interested to explore.

Thanks to the author and NetGalley for granting me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

Another wonderful Anne Tyler novel with some much to relate to. She's a master of writing about people so you feel like you've known someone exactly like them..

There's something about Anne Tyler's writing that pulls me in every time. I also love a story told in vignettes. I learned so much about this unhappy family through the eyes of each family member over many years. Even though it wasn't a very happy family, they weren't a hopeless family, and in the end it looked like they were going to break some of the cycles that had brought them so much frustration through out the generations. It's a short book, and each chapter reads like a short story. Some of the characters are more likeable than others (I'm looking at you Mercy), but I enjoyed the time I spent with them. I would recommend this book to readers of complicated family stories and literary fiction.

I received a free copy of this book from Netgalley for the purpose of review.

Despite growing up in Baltimore, I've only read one other Anne Tyler novel, and I'm not sure I'll read another. This book is a study of a family - an odd, dysfunctional one with members I did not like. There were times when I was fully engrossed, but then there were (what I felt were) tangents that added nothing of consequence and simply dragged on.

Tyler is an excellent writer, to be sure, but this type of novel - where I feel like I'm just gazing at a family and nothing much happens - isn't my favorite.

Thanks to Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group and NetGalley for the advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review. I have always enjoyed Anne Tyler’s books and this was no exception. This is a multi-generational family drama including realistically flawed characters. I will continue to read more by this author in the future!

I liked this book, though not much actually happens. The reader is taken through many decades of a family’s life, from when they were young parents until their own kids were grandparents themselves. All of the characters seemed very real and the dynamic between them was authentic. I generally enjoy stories that take me through multiple generations of family life.

As mentioned above, there wasn’t any drama in the book- I thought it moved quickly in the way that it went through like 70 years at a pretty fast clip, but there weren’t really any dramatic events at all. That being said, I understood what the author was trying to do by highlighting the dynamics between family members and giving a glimpse into the little wins and cruelties that make up complex family relationships. The only character I didn’t really connect with in any way was Mercy, the matriarch, who seemed overwhelmingly self-centered throughout. The other characters grew on me as the book continued.

All in all, I liked the book and read it quickly, but do wish that there would have been a little more action, or maybe a couple conflicts that the characters resolved. Thanks to Netgalley for providing me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

My first ever Anne Tyler book. And while I didn’t know what to expect I will say it was refreshing for a book to not be full of language or sex or politics! That part was certainly nice. On another note, at times it felt boring and hum drum. But I think the humdrum of following the Garrett family over the years was the point. It opens up with Serena running in to her cousin whom she barely knows or recognizes and Serena’s boyfriend being shock that she doesn’t know all of her family…even first cousins and aunts and uncles. Then the story proceeds to flashback to Robin and Mercy Garrett (who turns out to be Serena’s grandparents) with their young children on vacation. The books follows them all the way through the Garrett family’s life. Without climax, it seems. This family drama doesn’t seem to follow the typical build to climax to resolution type of plot line. Which I suppose is the way real life and really families are. Not just one climatic moment but a gathering of moments over the years that one looks back over and sees in a bit of a different light as they are older. The book is a spotlight on life as a whole and family as a whole. How we evolve and are shaped from the young ages throughout. How we view others (including family) through our own filters. Quite interesting actually.

This book is full of warmth and humor and family relationships. Very good read. Didn't like the ending tho

Thanks for the ARC, not my favorite by her. I struggled to finish this one. I. Sure others will like the characters and slow pace but it’s not for me.

This was an incredibly delightful book and I truly enjoyed reading it. It follows the Garrett family, but has different sections which focus on different members of the family during different times in their life. It was so well written, each character seemed incredibly real and genuine. It never felt trite or overworked to me, the writing was so well done and made you feel like you intimately knew these characters. The individual characters stories/narratives all fit well together. It was interesting, because it kind of gave you a feeling of knowing them both through someone else's eyes, and then through their own. I found that this gave voice to the fact that we really only know people through our own perception.

The book didn't necessarily set out to provide a psychoanalysis of the family, I think the determination about how to feel about the characters and understanding them was left up to the reader. Although it was an enjoyable read, I don't think it took it that last extra step further to illuminate something about the human condition. Still, it was enough to observe and become part of the family for the book.

I wanted to love this book so much- the first chapter sucked me right in and then honestly, it fell flat. It confused me a bit how it jumped around from different POVs, as well as huge gaps in the time frame. I did enjoy learning a bit about each character and where they ended up, I just wish she spent more time on how they got there. It was just an eh for me.

3.5

A good old family story, Tyler style

Hm. This is one of those books where I drove myself nuts trying to decide how many stars to dole out. I enjoyed the read, and I think that Tyler is pretty amazing, but yet . . . I have a bunch of complaints. So 3.5 stars it is, rounded down.

The story is about a family in Baltimore in the 1950s—a couple and their three kids. The dad is boring; the mom wants to do her painting. The two daughters are polar opposites: one is blasé and suburban, the other one is a little wild. The brother is detached. The story does spend a little time in the present, which gives the story a (good) saga feel to it.

Joy Jar

-What a pro Tyler is! Before I even know it, I am swooped up into the story. I’m reading along, thinking “this isn’t bad” when suddenly I realize I really really care about the characters. Magic! The pull is subtle, somewhat similar to what happens in Strout’s books.

-Lots of nuances. Lots of unsaid stuff that goes POP and creates tension in its silence.

-And man, can Tyler describe family dynamics. There’s strain, sadness, jealousy, wounds, distance, and love. The interactions are all so real, it’s familiar in a good way. I loved that I got to peek into someone else’s family. Tyler has so much insight and she can do families like no other.

-The characters are each unique. Actually, they are ordinary people, but Tyler shows you their guts and makes them stand out.

-I looked forward to picking up the book. I liked hanging out with this family (even though I didn’t like the mom).

Complaint Board

-Wait. What happened to that young, interesting couple I met at the beginning of the book? You’ve made me curious, so why go back to the 1950s and talk about the girl’s grandmother and her family all the sudden? And stay there! Call me crazy, but when I meet people at the start of a book, and pay all this attention to them, I get invested and I expect that the book is going to be about them. Not so, here. We’re stuck with the grandparents. Oh, I got into that family pretty fast (see the Joy Jar), but I still was wondering what happened to those two cool people introduced at the beginning.

-BS meter alert! The family is on vacation and the 15-year-old girl meets a guy who is 21, and they hang out together—every day he picks her up in his car and whisks her off for hours, usually the whole day. The parents don’t blink an eye. What???? NO parents are going to let their young teenage daughter hang out with a 21-year-old guy. Period. End of story (unless they are neglectful or out of it, which they’re not). I can’t for the life of me figure out why Tyler made the guy 21. The girl could have been boy-crazy and wild with someone her own age and it would have gotten the point across.

-The main character, the mom named Mercy (of all things), doesn’t like cats and she does something nasty. Don’t worry, she doesn’t hurt the cat, but she’s not nice to it. Biting my tongue to avoid spoilers. As a cat lover, I found this especially awful.

-I didn’t like Mercy anyway, but the cat deal made me hate her. It’s a drag not to care for a character that’s front and center.

-The book got a little sentimental at the end, with a little boy running around at his grandparents’ house and other wholesome, heartwarming things happening. I heard Hallmark being whispered into my ear.

-My only complaint about Tyler in the past was that her male characters are too passive. Here, same deal. I read that Tyler denies this allegation, LOL.

-Now this really is just me: Tyler’s brand of realism, like many others’, includes descriptions of clothes. Also kitchen and food descriptions. In the past few years, I’ve had more and more trouble stomaching stories where all the middle-ness of middle-class families is described in excruciating detail. It always makes me feel rebellious and lonely; I feel like a kid who is expected to conform but is bored by it all and wants to escape. I guess I just want descriptions of what’s going on inside the heads, not outside the heads. People will argue that describing outfits gives us a full picture of the character. This is true; people’s clothes could tell us something about their heads—but this doesn’t stop me from being bored by outfits and meal prep and tedious family traditions.

-Also, just me: The style is too quiet. I like more drama. I didn’t mind that not much happened; it’s just that the tone was hushed.

In the old days, I read several books by Tyler and absolutely loved them. Maybe this book just isn’t as good as some of her others, or maybe my tastes have changed. It was better than an okay read—as I said earlier, Tyler magically reeled me in and suddenly I gave a damn about the characters. But the book did make me pull out my Complaint Board—I had a lot of whines.

I think since the book does so skillfully pull you into the lives of complex, interesting characters, though, it will be a hit with most people. And although I gave the book only 3 stars, I already found myself already recommending it to a friend!

Thanks to NetGalley for the advance copy.