French Braid: From the Sunday Times bestselling author of Redhead by the Side of the Road

For a book lover , it is unacceptable to buy a damaged, second hand book. Poor quality paper and print. Damaged , torn jacket

Too much description-of-family-from-60s-onwards, not enough story.

And this woman does it again! More victoriously so, this time. This is the story of the Garett's. A walk down into their history of coming together, marrying, giving birth, leaving and finally dying. Except the story never ends with the family disappearing because families live, somehow or the other. That's the thing about kinship and bonds we create throughout our lives. They outlive its creators and what survives is the surname and some little habit, here and there, to remind one of whose child, grandchild one was once upon a time. The Garett's have had a very similar history. The story opens with a girl named Serena returning home after meeting her boyfriend's family in 2010. After that, Anne Tyler takes us back to the 1950s, when Serena's mother was a young girl trying to find her way through a family vacation that made the whole family lonesome. And then, we are in the 70s, Serena's mother and her sister have left their parents, and her grandmother, Mercy, is suddenly lonely when her son, too, leaves. But Mercy begins concentrating on her love for painting, as her marriage begins showing some dents. And then we are in the 90s, and then 2014, and finally 2020! Like that, we see a family growing, hurting, loving and departing like a french braid that once tied together falls apart in ripples when it loses it band. I have so much to say on this but I don't think I can say all that and not end up spoiling the book for you. This book has made me cry at several instances. It made me think of my own family and what it would be to get old. I kept thinking how my parents would be thinking of their children now, all grown up and no more the kids we once were. How much they must be missing us being kids and knowing nothing rather than being our own person, of claiming a little space from them and building our own worlds. It's so sad to grow up, I realised. I am thankful I will never have children. I don't think I can possibly live with the feeling that the one I gave birth to, or took care of, would someday create their own world and I wont be able to do anything but actually push the child toward doing exactly that. How sad it is to be parents, sometimes! Ah, I think I am rambling but these are thoughts that have come to my mind and stayed with me. This is certainly one of the best books I have read this year and I can't wait to read it in the years to come because I know I'd certainly feel so different about so many things discussed in the book.

I haven't read any other of Anne Tyler's books, so can't compare, but I definitely don't agree with those reviewers who complain that "nothing happens" in this novel. A lot happens, but mostly inside the hearts and minds of the characters. It's true there are no earth-shattering events, just everyday joys and sorrows. But I enjoyed it exactly because of that. I have just finished Cloud Cuckoo Land, which is excellent, but hard for me to read because as I get older I find it difficult to cope with too much fictional tragedy and disaster, especially when it's based on historical events. There is enough of that in the real world of today. So it's nice to read a novel that deals with things on a less dramatic scale. It seems to me that in this book the author is recommending patience, tolerance, acceptance ,kindness, taking the long view, especially in families, because family is the song that never ends: you can't get it out of your hair. Wise words from an old lady.

Here again is Anne Tyler's brilliant writing on family situations, but that's all this is, family situations, not a novel. A novel needs a conclusion, some kind of ending, not a fizzling out. The best part is between Mercy and Robin but even here, Robin is wonderfully grumpy and difficult at the beginning and then, at the end, he turns into Tyler's favourite male character, a passive, wimp toward his wife who, as in almost all Tyler's novels, runs rings round her husband.And what was the point of chapter 1, a train journey between the grand-daughter and her boyfriend, neither to appear again? Also, there's a whole chapter when Mercy goes to New York with another grand-daughter, what for? Except for Mercy's death, it had nothing to do with the rest of the novel. I have every one of Anne Tyler's books on my shelf but this is placed down with the least favourites.

Anne Tyler does people better than any other contemporary writer except perhaps for Elizabeth Strout . For me its a dead heat between these two giants of American literature.French Braid is the story of two rambling families brought together by a marriage many years previous with the intertwining generations that follow. Nothing spectacular happens , but the family progression and subtle family politics are fascinating.

I love Anne Tyler and have read almost all of her books but I was disappointed with this one. The story seemed very thin, focusing on a very selfish (in my view) older woman who decides to live in her Artist studio and abandon her lovely husband to find her new life. I couldn’t engage with the characters, and found the story annoying and confusing in parts. The first fifty or so pages were just boring. I don’t really feel she has much to say in this novel, although there are some insteful moments and flashes of vintage Tyler.

A very “Anne Tyler” book, well written and gentle observational snapshots of family life. However her more recent books, this one included, have very little plot and feel like the characters from one novel have been rehashed into another one. This one is no exception – I kept thinking back to her earlier(and in my opinion so much better) novels and this one pales in comparison.