This is a novel about family. How simple events in life cast influence for years, ongoing and never forgotten or forgiven. Makes you wonder how family members really feel about you - your actions and how they may be interpreted. There's no great drama or action in this book, it just follows an ordinary family and the personalities and idiosyncrasies. The prose is written to draw you into the family and know the characters - their thoughts, their environment, their day to day lives. You might think it would be boring, but the writing itself kept my engrossed.

The story begins in 1959 and ends during the time of the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. It covers three generations. Various family members narrate the story. Anne Tyler's prose is entrancing and provides a deep-dive into the character's lives and thoughts. There is a great deal of life covered in this short novel. It shows the love of family and the ties that bind them, both good and bad.

Thanks to Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group through Netgalley for an advance copy. This book will be published on March 22, 2022.

An engrossing novel following one family over the span of a few decades. Nothing happens and everything happens. We get satisfying slices of life from the perspectives of several members of the Garrett family.

This is somehow the first novel I’ve read by Anne Tyler but it will not be my last. She has incredible skill in making what could be a fairly mundane family story into a compulsively readable tale. The details and idiosyncrasies of each character are wonderful. I am still laughing at Kendall continuing to be called “Candle” by everyone since she was unable to properly pronounce her name as a child.

A must read if you are already a fan of the author’s work. I recommend it to anyone who enjoys (accessible) literary fiction, and well-observed portraits of family life in America.

Thank you very much to Knopf Doubleday and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ARC.

Nobody captures the nuances of family relationships like Anne Tyler. Spanning three generations, this story of the Garrett family feels familiar and comforting. The language is beautiful and the ending chapter set during the pandemic resonates with our current circumstances.

It's shameful that I am a Baltimore girl and have just read my first Anne Tyler book. The story of the Garrett family through the years, French Braid ticks along at a good pace. I just honestly did not find any of the members of this family likable. Oh sure, some of the grandchildren were just fine and even David was ok. I can totally understand how he just sort of stopped associating with his immediate family and moved to Philadelphia. His sisters, Alice and Lily, were wrapped up in their own worlds (and a bit older than David) and his parents, Mercy and Robin were the worst. Robin seemed to be one of those guys stuck in their generation, and Mercy honestly should not have had children. Poor Robin didn't even realize she'd left him. Anyway, it wasn't a bad story at all but if the characters have no real redeeming qualities, it just doesn't make for enjoyable reading, no matter how well-written it is.

*Special thanks to NetGalley and Knopf Publishing Group for an early arc of this novel.*

French Braid was my first book by Anne Tyler. I thought the characters were interesting and I enjoyed traveling through time with the Garrett family. There were parallels to my own family that kept me reading as well. Overall, it was an enjoyable experience and I look forward to my next book by Tyler.

I really wanted to love this but I didn’t. I liked the initial story of a couple visiting home but when it flashes back to the 1950s the book lost me. I never connected to the family. Some parts were better than others but I was left feeling disappointed. I’m a big fan of this author so perhaps this just want for me.

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)

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. It's not a bad book, it simply wasn’t for me.

I look forward to her next book, even though this was just good. But with Anne Tyler I've come to expect excellent!

A sweet slow-moving quick read featuring a family through a few generations. It's just the kind of read you expect from Anne Tyler and fans of her books will be quite satisfied with this latest endeavor.

French Braid by Anne Tyler is a very highly recommended portrait of a family. No one authentically portrays families in their frailties and strengths like Tyler. This exceptional novel provides uncomfortable truths, allows a few self-deceptions, little kindnesses, and little cruelties while depicting a Baltimore family.

French Braid follows the Garrett family over the course of sixty years. In the opening set in 2010, Serena and her boyfriend are in a Philadelphia train station when Serena thinks a man in the crowd is her cousin Nicholas. She hasn't seen him for years and can't really identify him. Her boyfriend thinks that there is some hidden secret about the distance between her extended family members. After this opening scene, the novel drops back in time to provide a portrait of the family over several decades.

In 1959, Robin and Mercy Garrett and their three children, oldest daughter Alice, her younger sister fifteen-year-old Lucy, and seven-year-old David, take their first and last family vacation. It becomes obvious why they have never taken a vacation. Robin is uncomfortable without a routine and worries about costs. Mercy simply wants to wander off alone and paint. Alice is the dependable one. Lucy is absent running around with an older boy she met. And quiet David is content playing with his plastic GIs he calls veterinarians. This vacation captures the essence of the family that will be confirmed over the years.

The narrative then unfolds over the years through the perspective of individual family members, capturing their lives and the distance between them. David remains distanced from his family, only occasionally joining family events, which are few and far between. This is where Tyler's unsurpassed skill and artistry is shown in her ability to create and develop realistic, sympathetic characters. The portrayal of each character is insightful as specific details are revealed and clarified over the years.

Tyler has been one of my favorite writers for years and French Braid perfectly showcases why. The quality of her writing is always perfect, finely crafted and exemplary. She always depicts her characters, who are average people, with such sympathy, warmth, insight and clarity. There is kindness as well as cruelty in their intermingled lives. Nothing huge or shocking happens in the plot, but much as in most ordinary people, there are small incidents and events that can add up. Characters do make some major choices, but it is presented as an event, not a crisis, and it is telling how the characters react to these crucial choices. Everyone should read this novel. French Braid is one of the best novels of the year.

The title comes from a discussion between David and his wife where he explains that families are like French braids. When you undo them, the hair is still in ripples, little leftover squiggles, for hours and hours afterward. David said, “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.”

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Knopf Doubleday
The review is published on Barnes & Noble, Google Books, and Amazon.

Baltimorean family, the Garrett’s, take their first family vacation to Deep Creek Lake. Matriarch Mercy is mostly interested in her painting and Robin wants to teach his youngest to swim. Lily only cares about boys as her older sister watches on. Spanning generations we watch the Garrett’s as their lives affect each other over decades.

While you shouldn’t expect excitement and major drama, you should expect a realistic and genuine family study. This is a book that will really make you think after. It stays with a single family over generations and shows how families grow together and how they grow apart. The characters were so true to life, especially it’s take on sisterhood and how we see ourselves in relation to our family.

“Wasn’t it really so easy to convince the world that life was proceeding as usual? Mercy had wondered. Yes, it was, evidently.”

French Braid comes out 3/22.

Anne Tyler is 80 years old now, and has certain themes and character types she's returned to over the years. The family names may change, but you'll so often find them in Baltimore, with a flighty mother aching for freedom, a husband set in his ways, a distant son carving out his own life, a woman marrying into the family who isn't like everyone else–and she often comes with a child. Is this The Accident Tourist? Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant? Ladder of Years? No, it's just Anne Tyler being Anne Tyler.

I thought I would scoff at this new book. I thought before I opened it, "I'm in my 40s, I'm done with all these White People Problems books, why did I even request this from NetGalley?" And yet...I am charmed, I feel nostalgic. Her Millennial voice needs work, sure, but Tyler's books have never been about the privileged, neurotic, narcissistic tenseness that is *actually* what I am sick of when it comes to American family dramas. There's a softness and light touch as she ducks in and out of these characters' heads, a consideration. Two sisters who each see each other as the difficult one, and she gives you enough of them to see why. She muddies the waters. She makes them feel real enough to care about, but sketched lightly enough to not feel stressed out by.

Which means when they get to the part of the book that takes place in the pandemic, I physically hurt. My soft nostalgia read! I mean, yes, there was already a scene that upset me, I found it shocking (though I should not have; if I hadn't been in a mist of my own nostalgia, I would have realized what was coming), but Anne Tyler's characters, so firmly in the real world? It was jarring. But Tyler is like that. For me, she is nostalgia. But she wrote The Accidental Tourist. It is not a squishy book. She is comfortable *to me,* but she is not always comfortable. Without this book ending where it did, I don't know that this book would've been anything more than fluffy to me. But I'm also the worst person to review her logically. I was reading her before I was old enough to be reading her. She has always been a part of my library.

I don't think we agree on what a French braid is, or else David describes it terribly.

This book is a celebration of how wonderfully fascinating ordinary people, ordinary families and ordinary lives can be. It was a pleasure to spend time with these characters. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

She writes like a dream, as always, and pays tribute to American lives, the weirdness of family, the privacy of psychology. And yet, for me, this was an underwhelming novel, highlighting some endearing characters, but not laying down more of a statement.

French Braid is classic Anne Tyler. Doing what she does best, Tyler probes the characters of a multi general non-cohesive family that probably is more typical than not. Her works are always rewarding to read and French Braid is no exception.

I received an electronic ARC from Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group through NetGalley.
I'm glad I gave Tyler another try. She captures family life beautifully in this book. This family is far from perfect but so relatable in their dysfunctions. The story begins in 2010 as readers meet Serena, a member of the the third generation and her boyfriend. The hint of how far this family has drifted apart is set up when she encounters a cousin and has few memories to connect them. From here, readers return to the story two generations back and see how the Garrett family got where they are. Readers walk with them and move back forward in time to see how this family interacts and makes choices to move apart. Humor overlaps with sadness as readers see people who struggle to be in each other's lives and still want to be connected. Tyler's writing style places readers as another person in the action as the characters reveal more of themselves and their relationships along the way. It's a slow process to share their layers much as it is in reality. A quick read that will stay with a reader as they see themselves and may or may not want to continue on similar paths.

French Braid
by Anne Tyler
Pub Date: March 22, 2022
Knopf
Thanks to the author, Knopf, and NetGalley for the ARC.
From the beloved best-selling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author--a funny, joyful, brilliantly perceptive journey deep into one Baltimore family's foibles, from a boyfriend with a red Chevy in the 1950s up to a longed-for reunion with a grandchild in our pandemic present.
I'm amazed that in a novel that is not very lengthy, she tells the story of a family over decades and generations with such well-developed characters in one family, so different from each other. There are ups and downs, selfishness and selflessness and there is love.
5 stars

This is Anne Tyler doing what she does best; telling a multigenerational tale over multiple decades. This story is told in chapters from different viewpoints. The author takes quirky yet ordinary characters and makes the story extraordinary in the telling. The story begins with someone asking a granddaughter of the family why her family never gets together and then you move backwards to the 1950s and see how the family grew and divided over time. Very human, very ordinary, totally extraordinary.
Thanks to NetGalley for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

This is another multigenerational novel of a Baltimore family, seemingly a bit darker than others I’ve read. The characters are impeccably drawn and totally fit the image of a family that loves each other but doesn’t necessarily like each other. The plot manages to keep them as individuals while illustrating the little things that make them family. A thoughtful family drama by a skilled writer.

Thanks to NetGalley and Alfred A. Knopf Publishing for the ARC to read and review.

No one gets to the heart of family and relationships like Anne Tyler. Through generations, with blended families, sibling rivalries and with all the drama and love that comes with families.

Anne Tyler does not disappoint. Beautifully written story of family.
Fans of Tyler's past works will absolutely not want to miss her latest.