Section Two describes a Garrett family lake vacation in 1959 and establishes the fraught dynamic. Each section is told in the third person perspective of a different family member. From then on, “French Braid” proceeds chronologically forward, with leaps of as few as seven and as many as 12 years between the novel’s eight sections. I encourage you to have a look at some of her earlier titles which I found more enjoyable.When the novel’s first section from Serena’s perspective ends, we flash back, somewhat confusingly and abruptly, to the late 1950s in a section told from Alice’s perspective. As with all of her books there is no real ending, she just places you in a family and their life.įrench Braid is written in the same wonderful style of Anne Tyler, but for me it was not one of her best. The way she dealt with it was just not believable and left me feeling slightly sad and unsatisfied. The book is about too many things to write in this short review but what I took from it was that Mercy was experiencing the ‘empty nest syndrome’. In fact, I didn’t have any fondness for any of the family and I just didn’t connect with them. Mercy was a selfish and unlikeable person.

As I said the characters in Anne Tyler’s books are very similar, I always identify with the mother figure, but this time I didn’t in Mercy. We then see over the years Mercy’s life with her family, and how when her children are all grown up, she moves out of the family home.

One of the central characters is Mercy, Serena’s Grandmother who we meet in 1959 on a family holiday with husband Robin and children Alice, Lily and David. Over the chapters of the book, we revisit three generations of the Garretts to see maybe why this is not the case for them. Her boyfriend scoffs at this as he is very close to his family and knows all his cousins. They meet her cousin who she hardly recognises. We meet the Garrett family through the eyes of Serena, who with her boyfriend is returning home from meeting his parents for the first time. If this seems boring, it is strangely not. All the characters are very similar, just with different names, but I must get on with this review of French Braid. Anyone who has read her books will know they are all very similar and all set in the U.S city of Baltimore, usually about a member of a family that is very ordinary, just a little like us. I am a big fan of her books and I think I have read all of them. I received a copy of Anne Tyler’s new book as a present. I am a member of the Dandenong Library and the Reading Circle that meets once a month. Help with Technology, Devices and Online Resources.Help with English, Resumes, Forms and Applications.

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Reviews of french braid by anne tyler