Anne Tyler | Book Chatter

Three Days in June
By Anne Tyler
Knopf, 9780593803486, February 11, 2025, 176 pp.

The Short of It:

Anne Tyler. Always a pleasure.

The Rest of It:

Gail Baines loses her job and then discovers that her bride-to-be daughter is in crisis mode. Something has happened to make her question her relationship. Because it’s the weekend of the wedding, Gail’s ex-husband Max is also in town and hits Gail up last minute for a place to crash, and he just happens to have a foster cat with him.

A wedding weekend filled with rehearsals and meals. The ex, well-liked but quirky and with a cat no less. Debbie. the bride-to-be, darting around busily as the wedding ensues. How can Gail rein this in? Can she? Is it even her place to do so?

Gail is a likable character. Not all that confident in her “mother-of-the-bride” status but she tries. She wants to do right by her daughter, and to remind her that if there are any doubts, that it’s okay to back out now. That it doesn’t matter that everyone has arrived for this thing. But then Gail is reminded of her own infidelity and how people can make mistakes and still be good people.

This is a whirlwind type of read. As a reader, you are invested in this story quickly and it’s tied up in much the same way, quickly. The writing is what earns stars here. Tyler’s characters always posses that quirky something-something that makes them interesting. I enjoyed it a lot. Almost felt it was too short.

Source: Borrowed
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French Braid
By Anne Tyler
Knopf, 9780593321096, March 2022, 256pp.

The Short of It:

Families. They expand, and evolve but not always in good ways.

The Rest of It:

The Garretts take a family vacation. Their first and last one in the summer of ’59. Mercy and Robin’s marriage is strained by Mercy’s desire to paint again. Paint again, in another house, away from her husband, for days on end. Their adult kids are all living their own lives but in a detached, “from afar” way. All of them linked by blood but communication is not their strong suit. They find out about each other’s big life events from others.

This was a strange little read. The family dynamic was interesting but I didn’t find myself pulling for anyone in this story, really. It seemed to span too many years, decades actually and as the story unfolds it meanders along until it wraps up, in what I felt, was a very abrupt way. I think I would have liked it better if the story centered around Mercy and Robin’s marriage alone.

Anne Tyler is a great storyteller. I’ve enjoyed many of her novels but this one left something to be desired.

Source: Review copy provided by the publisher.
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

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