This book started nicely and then suddenly starts back 3 generations in great detail. Details that did not relate back to the present day beginnings. I got lost in a central plot or connecting all these people back to the beginning and felt there was too much time spent in the past without ever explaining the family rifts,just their growing apart. Seemed disjointed. Not my cup of tea, not like any family saga I have read. Leaves one wondering what did I just read?
I was provided an advanced reader copy of this book and was under no obligation go provide a review. The opinions expressed are my own.
Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for allowing me to read this book. I don't like leaving bad reviews but I just could not connect the dots here, sadly its lacking for me.

Title: French Braid
Author: Anne Tyler
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, Knopf
Reviewed By: Arlena Dean
Rating: 4
Review:
"French Braid" by Anne Tyler

My Assessment:

"French Braid" was just a read about the Garrett family for three generations starting in 1959 and goes through the ending of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. I loved how this author brought the pandemic into the story. This family consisted of the father [Robin], mother [Mercy], and three children... Alice, the oldest, Lily, and David. We follow this family through decades was like a 'French Braid' that has been unraveled, showing where each character had their 'way to fulfilling their impulses, therefore many times unwilling to conform their desires when it came to the cost of the others members in the family...that's how families work.'

The author gives the reader quite a read as the story goes through years in the lives of this family from marriage, weddings, births, successes with lots of changes coming from and bringing on disagreements, and misconceptions, spoken and unspoken. But still showing there was a love of the family that did bind them somehow. So be ready as the reader will be shown definite details and peculiarities of some of these characters.

The story will leave one being able to resonate quite a bite from this story of what went on in this Garrett family and just how close they were. But, I still had a feeling whether the Garrett family were truly happy or not?

Thank you very much to Knopf Doubleday and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ARC in exchange for an honest opinion.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Knopf Publishing Doubleday for gifting me a digital ARC of the latest novel by an absolute favorite, Anne Tyler - 5 stars!

In the 1950s, the Garrett family - dad, Robin; mom, Mercy, daughters, Alice and Lily; and son, David - leave Baltimore for their first and only real vacation, a week at the beach. We then follow this family through to present day times, going along with the good and the bad of family life.

No one does family like Anne Tyler - she is such a gifted writer and I loved immersing myself in this family. We see Mercy's struggles to figure out her need for her alone time with her parenting and family responsibilities, and how that affects her relationships. We see the very different daughters, their different roles in the family, and how they relate to each other as well as to the family as a whole. And then there's the baby, David, who marches to his own beat, no matter how hard his dad tries otherwise. These are the themes that echo through most of our families in some ways - the pull of the family as well as the need to push away. I adored spending time with this family and Tyler's writing, who has the gift of making me laugh and cry at the same time. Highly recommended!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this book.It really just wasn’t my cup of tea. I did not particularly like any of the characters. It was like reading a series of memories that explore family dynamics, While the description said it was funny, I didn’t find any humor. I left me feeling a bit melancholy.

Ann Tyler has written so many books. She says true to her audience, always giving her readers what they want without fail. This book entranced me from the beginning when it started with the most recent generation of the Garrett family. Serena went home with her boyfriend to meet his parents for the first time. After the visit, it was clear that there were major differences between the families and how the family members interacted with each other. With this introduction, the story continues on in a linear fashion, covering three generations. This was a great study on how families conform to their needs and what becomes important to them. I absolutely recommend this book to all Ann Tyler lovers and everybody who likes a good family story. Many thanks to NetGalley and Knopf Publishing for allowing me the privilege of receiving a DRC in exchange for an honest review.

This is a good book. It’s easy to read and moves along fairly quickly. It’s about the Garrett family. The family is made up of Robin, the father, Mercy the mother and their three children Alice, Lily and David. The family takes their first vacation and the story goes from there. It takes place in the late fifties, forward. The characters are believable and entertaining. This is the first book I have read from this author and I will read another one. I will also recommend it to friends and family. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read an advance copy for my honest review.

Anne Tyler has done it again. She has produced another family saga that is like the best comfort food. Her stories, to me are so comforting and familiar but not predictable.

If you are fan of Anne Tyler don't miss this one and if you haven't tried her yet you are missing out. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest opinion.

This was my first Anne Tyler book, and I was only moderately impressed.

MV rating: 6/10
•A beautiful character study of a highly nuanced family.
•The characters are well written, if completely unlikeable. There is no action/event/storyline, just a stream of memories or events from different character perspectives.
• I was able to finish it, but was left wanting a little more bite - it’s emotional, but made me feel “meh” instead of moved.

Thank you to Knopf Doubleday for the ARC access!

French Braid."That's it. And then when she undid them,(her braids) her hair would still be in ripples, little leftover squiggles, for hours and hours afterward."
"Yes..."
"Well," David said, "that's how families work, too. You think you are free of them, but you're never REALLY free; the ripples are crimped in forever."
What a perfect metaphor for a family that specializes in distance from one another, secrets of their lives untold, where communication is stifled, even as their lives are enter-twined or braided with one another.
To be transparent, I kept getting knots in my stomach reading this novel as I identified my own family with its secrets, aloofness and silence. This story begins in 1959,a time when housewives generally acted like "Leave it to Beaver" and expressing their secret desires was not the norm. After several decades(60 years) we see the evolution of this family from grandparents, children and grandchildren. Though the family was cracked and detached from one another, love was expressed in small intricate waves. An insecure father, married to a woman who secretly wanted to be an artist, a daughter who was prim and proper, another one wild and contrary, and the unknowable son who distanced himself from the family. After the kids move out, the wife subtlely ships her items to a rented studio proceeding daily to set it up, bringing her clothes, beginning to spend nights there until she moves out completely while her husband refuses to acknowledge the truth. And..typical in this family, the truth is never spoken out loud to the children. The children have their own clandestine adventures in this character driven novel expressed by the minutiae of families every day lives. However, one gets to witness the unraveling which I found sad but not bleak, with the ending showing there is light at the end of the tunnel.
Although this was not my favorite of Anne Tyler's books, Tyler fans will not be disappointed. Themes are consistent with many of her other novels and you know she will pilot you safely forward.

What is the “glue” that holds a family together? As this novel points out, family members may love each other, but not like each other.

This is an above-average novel about an average, dysfunctional family. The gradual estrangement over time and generations leaves gaping holes in the family history. It is hard to pinpoint exactly when the fabric of the family begins to unravel as it is a gradual disintegration. The emotional disconnections and geographical distances contribute to the lack of closeness and communication between parents, siblings, grandchildren and cousins.

The initial chapter sets the stage by contrasting one family’s closeness with the estrangement of another. It was hard to connect the characters in this chapter to saga of the Garrett family until the latter half of the book. At times, there were so many different characters involved that keeping the names straight was a bit challenging. Once the nuclear family began to expand through marriages and offspring, the character development became increasingly vague and I felt less invested in their stories.

I was a bit puzzled by the promotional blurb that mentions hilarity, warm and humor, which I found lacking. At best I can say that the author did a good job at revealing how little a family can truly know about each other and the sad pretense that members maintain, even if well-intended. The storyline was relatable and believable based on my personal experience as well as observing other families.

Overall, this is a credible novel, but not a particularly entertaining one.

My thanks to the author, the publisher, and NetGalley for the privilege of reviewing this book. The opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

This review is being posted immediately to my GoodReads account and will be posted on Amazon upon publication.

I am thrilled that this book was granted to me to review. It's been years since I've read Anne Tyler, and this book hit the perfect spot. This book is funny, nostalgic, and sometimes breaks your heart a bit. It's the story of The Garrett's, from the 1950s to present day, through the children to grandchildren and everything that comes in our lives that we sometimes don't see when we're in the midst of it. You will want to read this book. It really has a bit of something for everyone.
Thank you to #NetGalley and #KnopfDoubleday for the e-arc of this title in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.
#FrenchBraid #AnneTyler

I would like to thank Knopf Publishing and Net Galley for allowing me the opportunity to read and review this book as an ARC. I would also like to thank Anne Tyler for again giving me a delightful book to read. French Braid is a multi generational story, following the lives of Robin and Mercy Garrett, their children and their children's children. The Garrett family story is not one of sweeping successes, or wild scandals, or major intrigue. It is the story of a family from Baltimore who run a hardware store. It is the story of Robin and Mercy and their marriage, its highs and lows. It is the story of their 3 children, Alice, Lily and David. It is the story of the grandchildren, Kendall ( called candle because she could not pronounce her own name when little, ) Nicholas, Serena , Eddie , Emily and the 2 Robby's - Robby the boy and Robby the girl( both named for Grandpa Robin.) It begins in 1959 and ends in 2020, with the pandemic. But the pandemic is really just a backdrop for the family story the chapter contains. The emphasis in the whole book is on the family, what pulls them apart and what brings them together. It is fun, clever, witty , heart- rending and sad. It is just like a family in real life. I thoroughly enjoyed it and highly recommend it.

FRENCH BRAID by Anne Tyler evokes a gentle, peaceful feeling for the reader despite some dysfunction in the family portrayed by this award-winning author. The novel spans decades and offers an interwoven chain of stories involving everyday questions: where to live; what to wear; what to serve guests ... Each character is both self-absorbed and yet very conscious of his or her own perceptions of the needs of other family members. The matriarch, Mercy, is my favorite. She's an artist whose paintings are a kind of metaphor for the hyper-focus on one aspect of a situation. Robby, her husband is kind, if socially awkward. Readers meet their three children: Alice (conscientious and bossy), Lilly (a free spirit), and David (quiet and reserved). Eventually, spouses, grandchildren and even great-grandchildren join the multi-generational cast, often reflecting characteristics of elder family members. This is a story told through vignettes which I thoroughly enjoyed and did not want to see end. FRENCH BRAID received a starred review from Booklist ("lushly imagined, psychologically intricate, virtually inhalable novel").

French Braid by Anne Tyler is...well, another book by Anne Tyler.  As a fan of her writing, you will not be disappointed.  This one was a bit hard to follow for me in the first few chapters, but I've learned to keep sticky notes nearby to help me keep track of who is who. Tyler is great at character development, and once you really get to know the characters, the novel flows.  Thank you, NetGalley and the publisher, for providing me with an ARC ebook in exchange for my honest review.  This one has been on my radar and I was stoked to get an early peak.

I have mixed feelings about this book. I was confused at the jump between the characters in the first and second chapters, and spent much of the book wondering about the connection. When we did find out what the connection was, the original character wasn't really developed, which was disappointing to me.

4.00. Ann Tyler is a masterful novelist in her depictions of families, and she has succeeded again in French Braid. Although this is not my favorite novel of hers, she truly captures the essence of family relationships, e.g. their faults, their strengths, intimacies, and peculiarities. As in her other novels, Ms Tyler does a beautiful job in character development. The novel largely takes place in Baltimore ( the situs of many of her books) from 1959 though the summer of 2020, with the Garrett family, Mercy and Robin, and their children, Alice, Lilly and David, each a distinctive character, and the book carries through a few later generations of the family. Although each character is different, there are threads that bind them as a family through the subsequent generations. The novel is funny, poignant, and sad at times, and was very captivating. Thanks to NetGalley I received an advance copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased and candid review.

This story follows a family through several decades. While it opens with one particular family member, that person is never heard from again until the very end, and then only briefly. A lot of detail is missing from this person's life. I was left wondering why she was important enough for the opening pages and then forgotten about almost entirely.
Descriptions are vague, except for the seeming importance placed on eye color in the first chapter.
While I liked the characters, especially the strength portrayed by Mercy, the book seems a little bi-polar and disjointed. It's a good story, just maybe could use some fleshing out. Even the title makes no sense until one sentence near the end of the book.

4.5 stars. Many people think that no one write about families as Anne Tyler does . . . and I fully agree! I have enjoyed oh so many of her novels, and this latest one -- the story of the Garrett family -- did not disappoint. No twists and turns in the plot, no outlandish occurrences along the way, but just writing and a wonderful instropective look into the individual characters that make up the Garrett family as they proceed through life. Novels such as this one are great examples of superb American literature.

Another absolutely fabulous book by the wonderful Anne Tyler. She spins an mesmerizing multi generational family tale as only she can!

French Braid is a detailed, rich, compassionate portrayal of an extended family throughout the years, and each segment is beautifully crafted. But there's a problem with the novel, which I'll address at the end.

Starting in the 1950s, (except for flash-forward prologue chapter at the beginning), we see a family of five on their last trip to a lake house. Each character in the family is unique and well-drawn. The family is lightly dysfunctional, in a way that resonates with real life.

One strength of Tyler's writing is her ability to depict characters and their actions as ambiguous; they're so nuanced, both good and bad. For example, Mercy is the perfect representation of a 1950s housewife who isn't a natural at it. When her youngest child goes to college she moves down the street to a rental apartment over someone's garage and lives a self-centered life there, imagining herself to be an artist. Who wouldn't want to run away in such a fashion? But what obligation does she owe to her husband, whose life is incomplete without her? Is that reason enough for her to come back home? These questions weren't stated. Tyler doesn't do that. She simply depicts a situation, and the reader is free to pick up on it, or not.

So we go on through fifty years of family growth and permutations, and it's a really colorful, rich portrait, but -- and this is my problem with the book -- there's no story. It's all character and theme.

Anne Tyler is a masterful writer, but French Braid doesn't go anywhere. The theme, that you're always a part of your family, is interesting. In fact, the first chapter/prologue demonstrates how a young member of the family is already showing signs of repeating her grandmother Mercy's personality. There are other examples of this, and one of the older characters muses on it, how grandchildren can have personality quirks just like a certain elder, without ever having been in the same room with them. Etc. But observations don't make a novel, so I can only give this three stars, regrettably. Thanks to Netgalley for letting me read the ARC.