Well, Ms. Tyler doesn’t disappoint with this lovely tale of a family. Deeply explores relationships between husbands and wives and also those of siblings. The timeline was a bit strange at times, jumping ahead several years but it works. Two quotes that I love : Oh, what makes a family not work? and Oh, the lengths this family would go to so as not to spoil the picture of how things were supposed to be! Brilliant.

I enjoyed this quick read. It was a good family story even with all of their individual faults. Almost everyone would be able to relate to at least one of these family members.

The writing, as always with Anne Tyler, is great. Tyler is descriptive and has great skill in using words to create a vivid picture. I was really looking forward to reading this book. Perhaps it’s our current difficult times or maybe it’s the utterly dysfunctional family at the heart of this book, but I didn’t find it a satisfying read. This family just never comes together; they don’t have conversations. They are selfish and not particularly self-aware. My favorite part of the book is actually the title which perfectly describes the loosely woven nature of this story. I’m sure this will become a best-seller but I didn’t enjoy reading it. Thanks to NetGalley for providing an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This book follows the life of a family from the 1950's to present - all the good and all the bad.

The Garrett's are perhaps the poster children for dysfunctional - but they are happy, resilient and live life.

A slow, enjoyable read - written by an exceptional author.

French Braid was a pleasant, slow read for me. It is the story of a family, their personalities (which don't always mesh), a marriage that works but not in the usual ways, thwarted ambitions, unexpected decisions, and the single vacation that the whole family takes in 1959 which defines many of the later events. This is a good story for anyone who enjoys tales of family life through many years. It is well written and Anne Tyler is a master of descriptive prose.

It seems to me that the unifying theme in all Anne Tyler books is an unhappy, unsettled family. The Garrett family of Baltimore is that family in French Braid. The only vacation they take together is in 1959. Granddaughter Serena is a graduate student and is on a train trip to meet the parents of her new boyfriend James when she thinks she sees her cousin Nicholas. Only she isn’t positive that it’s him and when James encourages her to speak to him, she says that she couldn’t possibly do that, since it could be terribly embarrassing. They do chat before catching their trains and James quips, “you guys give a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘once removed.’”

Serena asked her mother Lily why they didn’t have a family reunion. Lily said, “Hmm? A Reunion? I suppose we could. Though it wouldn’t be a very big reunion.” Serena asked if the elusive Uncle David would come and her mother said, Possibly. Serena wondered - what makes a family not work? The answer unfolds through a quirky charismatic cast of characters, the Garretts of Baltimore.

Writing: 4.5/5 Characters: 4/5 Plot: 3/5

A classic Anne Tyler novel following the lives of a Baltimore family through generations from 1959 to the present (including the Covid lockdown). Blending family dynamics with individual personalities in the context of the times, it is a study in the ways that families simultaneously work and don’t work.

Naturally well-written (Pulitzer prize winning author!) with a set of characters drawn in depth and with a high degree of verisimilitude. The characters were not always likable — in fact, I was struck by how few of these people I would actually enjoy spending time with. Not that there was anything terrible about them, but their very realness reminded me of the difference between live people with their selfishness, tiny cruelties, and obliviousness to the interests of others, and my favorite book characters who seem to always have their best foot forward even when making mistakes. This may be more of a commentary on why I don’t have more friends than anything else!

Told in eight chapters focused on one family member at a time over three generations, French Braid introduces the Garrett family. I am so glad that I kept reading after the first chapter which didn’t really grab me. The deeper I read, the more I liked it. This book reminds us that there are many different kinds of families and many different kinds of love. Some families are close. Some are not. Some choose to spend time together. Some do not. Yet underneath the differences, one usually finds love. As the novel drew to a close, I wiped away my tears and thought with love of my own family, our similarities and differences. Thank you Anne Tyler.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the chance to read this arc in exchange for an honest review.

Anne Tyler has an ability to describe the humdrum day-to-day in a way that captures our interest and keeps us interested in her characters. Once again she has built a novel around a family with ordinary people in mundane situations that we can all recognize. In this case, we read about various members of the Garrett family in three generations. As the focus changes from one person to another, we learn more about the people we've already met. For example, in the chapters regarding Mercy, the matriarch, we catch revealing glimpses into the lives of her children and their relationship with their father and each other. There are boundaries and distances that are revealed over time as family members come together and grow apart, much like a French braid that is woven together and leaves waves when undone. What I find most appealing about this novel, as with all of Tyler's, is how much she seems to like her characters, idiosyncrasies and flaws and all.

I enjoyed this book. It was interesting that it included a pretty realistic picture of living life with covid amid the daily family life. I actually haven't read an Anne Tyler book for a long time

Anne Tyler writes about life and family in Baltimore like no other.

French Braid looks at life in one family from the 1950s to current days. A family holiday in 1959 has a life long impact on all the members that were there. Estrangement meets the desire for re-engagement.

How family dynamics throughout generations impact each individual life drives this plot. Despite all of the tangled feelings toward each other, how does love come through?

Another hit by Anne Tyler

I really wanted to like this book because I had previously read “A Spool of Blue Thread” by this author and really enjoyed it. I also enjoy multi-generational family sagas, so I was eager to start this book. But, unfortunately, it didn’t draw me in the way that I had hoped.

The book is comprised of eight chapters, the first taking place in 1959, and the last is written in the present day, with the Covid pandemic playing a large part of that story. Each chapter focuses on one family member.

While my own family has its own dysfunctional tendencies, this family beats them hands down. Not that they were terrible people; they just weren’t good people. They were just woven loosely together (like a French braid, of course) and bound by DNA.

I struggle because so many other readers have given this book four and five-star reviews, but the story just fell flat for me. Perhaps I am in the minority here.

I love Tyler's family sagas but I never quite connected with this one. The family was a bit too disconnected to me and the problems were extremely understated. There were also lots of characters to keep track of - a family tree would have been helpful. Tyler's writing is strong, this just wasn't a favorite for me. I received an ARC courtesy of NetGalley - perhaps in the final version there will be a family tree.

I am not sure if I have read this author before. I loved her writing! She can really develop characters and make them come to life. I loved reading about the family and their relationships. I will have to read some of her other books. I will definitely order this book for the library.

This was a great Anne Tyler focusing on multigenerational character development. If you liked A Spool of Blue Thread, also by Tyler, or Commonwealth by Ann Patchett, you will like French Braid.

Anne Tyler's evocative style of writing always makes me care about the characters in her books and what happens to them. This gentle, lovely family saga is full of people who are likable, annoying, but always interesting. Even as the generations aged and passed on, I remained invested in what happened next. Generational relationships fascinate me, as they magnify wonderful (and terrible) traits that we inherit and how we all use them a little bit differently.

Adult Realistic Fiction. While Mercy is living her golden years, she is also an artist, attempting to revitalize her work and where she works/lives. She struggles to come to terms with how she wants the rest of her life to look after 50 years of marriage and an even longer life. Anne Tyler's novel shares one woman's redefinition of self and one couple's interactions with each other and their adult children. Tyler continues to layer real-life complexities that parallel real-world situations.

Anne Tyler is one of the finest American authors, perfectly capturing the humanity of her characters. In #FrenchBraid we see the intricacies of family relationships, individual personalities and characteristics, the surprising yet ordinary ways that life plays out. Perhaps the emotional distance between each character is reminiscent of the physical distance many of us have experienced over the past two year. And perhaps it’s a reminder that we might all try a little harder to care for one another …. or that we’re all just a little different and perfectly okay.

Anne Tyler's latest novel follows the Garrett family through three generations. The narrative starts in the early 1950's with Robin and Mercy newly married. They have three children, Alice, Elyse and David. The children aren't particularly close to one another or their parents and, as the novel progresses, David becomes more and more aloof from the family.

This is a family with very low expressed emotion, where public displays of emotion are unheard of. A kiss on the cheek is a rarity and touching one another just doesn't occur. Maybe a hug once in awhile for a grandchild, but that's it.

The Garretts work hard to portray themselves as a normal family. "Oh, the lengths this family would go so as not to spoil the picture of how things were supposed to be." Secrets be damned. No one would be privy to them. Even when Mercy gets a studio to do her artwork, and then basically moves into it, Robin tries to keep it secret from his children for years. Oh, the dishonor of Mercy having moved out.

I have to say that this book puzzled me. I found it difficult to understand the distance that existed between the family members and their contentment with this. There was no particular animosity or harboring of anger, just a nonchalant lack of caring. I didn't feel like I got to know the characters any more than they showed themselves to each other. I viewed them from the outside, but was unaware of their inner lives. Robin actually comments on this to an extent, when he says he has no idea what's going on in his kids' lives and that fatherhood was not what he'd envisioned.

The title French Braid comes from the hairdo. After, a French braid is undone, crinkles are left in the hair for a very long time. "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."

Ms. Tyler's concept of family bothered me as it seemed so sterile and without emotion. As one character says, "So, this is how it works. This is what families do for each other - hide a few uncomfortable truths, allow a few self-deceptions." To me, family is so much more, in all its grace and difficulties. Families stir up emotions that stay with us for most of our lives. If we're lucky, we come from a loving family, and that love shows us the way and sustains us.

Thank you to Knopf Doubleday and NetGalley for an advanced reading copy of this novel.

No one writes character driven novels quite like Anne Tyler. In "French Braid", Ms. Tyler deals with an entire family. She examines their relationships, their personalities, and we learn why they behave as they do. She beautifully allows us to see how they age, and change, and even, drift apart. And she does all of this with true compassion and an understanding that makes us reflect on ourselves and our relationships with the family we grew up with.
It's a beautiful story that should not be missed.