French Braid: A novel
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.
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Community Reviews
This book had so much potential, it had everything I wanted, but it should have been twice as long. The characters were unique and interesting, and I felt like I didn't get to know them enough to care. Major events were skipped over, when I thought the author could sit in the situations for a bit longer. I love a complex multi generational family novel, and this checked all my boxes but still fell short. If I could read another 300 pages I would, but the novel as is does not cut it for me personally
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