booktalkwithkarla 's review for:

French Braid by Anne Tyler

5.0

emotional funny reflective sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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Mercy and Robin Garrett have three children - Alice, Lily, and David. This is their story and spans decades from 1959 to 2020, illuminating “the kindnesses and cruelties of our daily lives”. If you like generational stories, and I do, this is a book for you. 

Anne Tyler captures the inner workings, connections, and unspoken sentiments of a family with empathy and heart. Her writing is both lyrical and direct, exactly what is needed paragraph by paragraph. The time jumps from chapter to chapter were easy to make because of how she anchored you to time, person, and place. 

I enjoyed this book and read it in one setting. Just like Tyler’s insights about family, I loved the people even when I didn’t like them. I read a public library copy of the book so capturing some favorite lines here:

• “Oh, what makes a family not work?”
• “And now she looked back on that time quite fondly, in fact, even though she had no earthly desire to relive it.”
• “Sometimes people live first one life, and then another life… First, a family life and then later a whole other kind of life. That’s what I’m doing.”
• “Silence made what she was doing seem more important somehow – more purposeful, almost like praying.”
• “Oh, hon… it’s never wise to look over your shoulder… Just run your race on your own, I say. Don’t fret about the others.”
• “Wasn’t it amazing how resilient people were, how they persisted, how they kept trying to connect!“