Reviews with content warning for Alcoholism - Tom Lake

It was 2020 and the world as we knew it had stopped. Lara, Joe, and their three daughters were on their farm working to harvest the cherries in their orchard. To pass the time, the girls wanted to know the full story of how Lara ended up dating someone who later became a huge movie star. Growing up, they had heard bits and pieces of the story but never heard it from beginning to end. As Lara moved through the story, more about their lives as a family on the farm unfold.

I really enjoyed reading this story. I loved how Ann Patchett wove the story together by linking the play, Our Town, with the impact playing the lead character, Emily, had on Lara throughout her life. Playing Emily in Tom Lake's summer stock performances was where she met Peter Duke, who would become a very well-known actor years later. That summer, Lara learned that she needed to pivot and take a direction that was unexpected from what she had planned. I felt much like Lara's daughters did in that I was excited to learn more of the story. The dialog between characters was natural and well written. The characters, themselves, were easy to visualize, and I could picture so many parts of the story in my mind. Overall, this was a wonderful novel about family and how big moments in life could lead to unexpected changes that end up bringing us to where we find our greatest happiness.

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tlaynejones's review against another edition

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emotional reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Diverse cast of characters? No

4.0

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freedo8quigly's review against another edition

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reflective slow-paced

Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

This was so slow. I love listening to stories about people's lives, but I didn't care about Lara. The fact that she kept auditioning for Our Town, and getting cast as Emily made me wonder if she could do anything else or if she only had one mode.

Turns out I was right- she actually sucks, and then immediately gives up at the first out she gets. Uhg.

As much as I didn't care for any of the characters, this book was also kind of comforting. Might be because Meryl Streep is comforting.

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ila_mae's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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caronchapman's review against another edition

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emotional reflective relaxing medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I wasn’t sure I would enjoy this as it was a book club pick and I haven’t read anything by Ann Patchett before, but I was surprised at how much I did. It’s beautifully written and the characters are imperfect and interesting. I loved the family dynamics, the setting (I now want to go live on a cherry farm!) and how the story unfolded with revelations at the right points in the book to keep it interesting (the pace can seem a bit slow towards the middle). I do think it’s written to appeal to an American audience - the focus on Our Town as an example - but it’s still quite relatable nonetheless.

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hellokaley's review against another edition

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emotional reflective relaxing medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Tom Lake is my first Ann Patchett book in recent years and it felt like a classic. The language was absolutely beautiful, painting a picturesque setting of a mother and her daughters harvesting cherries on the family orchard during the pandemic. The story is told through the mother’s perspective as she met her daughter’s pleas by telling the story of her past as a young actress. Meryl Streep’s narration and performance was absolutely brilliant and the audiobook was a delight.

The themes that resonated most with me were focused around the relationships with mothers and their adult children, the lives our parents led as young people, and the connection between the two. This one feels like a story that will be with me for a long time.

“I look at my girls, my brilliant young women. I want them to think I was better than I was, and I want to tell them the truth in case the truth will be useful. Those two desires to not neatly coexist, but this is where we are in the story.”

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shae_reads's review against another edition

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emotional reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

This was a book club choice. It was very boring. This novel is character driven but the characters were one-dimensional, unlikeable and uninteresting. In my opinion nothing interesting happens except

when Uncle Wallace throws up all that blood on stage but still finished the show!

There is also very little romance involved in this “romance” novel.

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mgdsmile's review against another edition

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emotional reflective medium-paced

4.5

I really enjoyed Tom Lake. The novel is told in the voice of Lara, who in the present day is the mother of three young adult daughters who have, for various reasons, returned home to the family cherry farm in Northern Michigan in the spring of 2020. As the family is forced to isolate from other social obligations due to the pandemic, daughters Emily, Maisie, and Nell engage their curiosity in their mother's past as an actress, and husband Joe listens in.

The story is told through Lara's flashbacks to her growing up and young adult years. Over several days, she recounts to her children how she got into acting as a girl and eventually how she ended up cast at a summer production of Our Town, located at a theater company called Tom Lake in upstate Michigan. Most importantly, her daughters interrogate her about her relationship with Peter Duke, her co-star at Tom Lake, who has since become famous. In her late fifties now, Lara editorializes on her early life, both to her daughters and the reader.

The author reveals important details with intention along the way, as the daughter and the readers pick up clues as to how the story ends. Lara's voice is full of nostalgia, thankfulness, and simplicity as she narrates the closure she found over the years in her romance with Duke. We also observe Lara encountering her changing relationship with each of her maturing daughters, and Lara also reflects on parenting with wisdom and hindsight.

I was nervous that a novel grounded in spring 2020 would evoke elements of stress in me. Instead, Tom Lake captured the slowness and earnestness I want to remember of those days. Patchett has spun a simple yet captivating tale that had my attention for the duration of the book, and after, putting Michigan cherry farms on my travel list.

Many thanks to the Nashville Public Library's Lucky Day Collection for access to this popular novel.

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