French Braid - Anne Tyler

French Braid

By Anne Tyler

  • Release Date: 2022-03-22
  • Genre: Family Fiction & Literature
Score: 4
4
From 495 Ratings

Description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the beloved Pulitzer Prize–winning author of A Spool of Blue Thread—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.

“A quietly subversive novel, tackling fundamental assumptions about womanhood, motherhood and female aging.” —The New York Times Book Review


The Garretts take their first and last family vacation in the summer of 1959. They hardly ever leave home, but in some ways they have never been farther apart. Mercy has trouble resisting the siren call of her aspirations to be a painter, which means less time keeping house for her husband, Robin. Their teenage daughters, steady Alice and boy-crazy Lily, could not have less in common. Their youngest, David, is already intent on escaping his family's orbit, for reasons none of them understand. Yet, as these lives advance across decades, the Garretts' influences on one another ripple ineffably but unmistakably through each generation.

Full of heartbreak and hilarity, French Braid is classic Anne Tyler: a stirring, uncannily insightful novel of tremendous warmth and humor that illuminates the kindnesses and cruelties of our daily lives, the impossibility of breaking free from those who love us, and how close—yet how unknowable—every family is to itself.

Reviews

  • Not a fan

    2
    By 444jelly
    One of the most boring books I have ever read. Do not recommend. The characters are bizarre and totally unrealistic. Mercy is exceptionally annoying and odd. Could not finish it. Total dysfunctional family. No point to the story except a boring life.
  • This is the most boring book I have ever read.

    2
    By myrnaisapunkrocker
    That says it all. It's painfully boring.
  • Boring

    2
    By dognreath
    This started out well but then became scattered and disjointed. It was disappointing.
  • French Braid

    5
    By Perky too
    I also am a big Tyler fan. Her stories are always about people that I feel like I know so when the book is finished I feel a little like I lost a friend and want to somehow stay in touch. French Braid is a little different. The book’s main characters, the Garrets live like most of us do, for years that are reported as the family grows. It’s a little different format for Tyler. I loved it.
  • French Braid

    1
    By scdzd
    Boring!!!!!!
  • Don’t read it.

    1
    By peg37316254
    Honestly, it’s the worst book I’ve ever read.
  • I am a Tyler fan

    5
    By Flydini
    I am a major Anne Tyler fan and enjoy all her books. This one I enjoyed best up to the year 2020 chapter. The character David was never made compelling and the focus on him did not interest me as much as the others. So I think the book lost a bit of its grip for me at the end.

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