Helpful Score: 13
I guess it isn't possible to give a book less than 1/2 of a star.
When I think of the absolute WORST BOOK I have ever SUFFERED through in my 40 plus years of avid reading this book jumps right to the top!
When I read a book I want at least ONE character that I can like, that I can cheer for, that I can care what happens to! This book did not have such a character - NOT ONE. It has a totally disfunctional family, none of which like each other - NO SURPRISE there!! No one would like these people. As I got further and further into this book I just wanted them all to die, (no that isn't HORRIBLE - this is FICTION REMEMBER) so that I could get them out of the book and so that the book could end! They were all so miserable anyway!
Don't read this book unless you are truly desperate for a soap opera gone REALLY BAD!!!!!!
When I think of the absolute WORST BOOK I have ever SUFFERED through in my 40 plus years of avid reading this book jumps right to the top!
When I read a book I want at least ONE character that I can like, that I can cheer for, that I can care what happens to! This book did not have such a character - NOT ONE. It has a totally disfunctional family, none of which like each other - NO SURPRISE there!! No one would like these people. As I got further and further into this book I just wanted them all to die, (no that isn't HORRIBLE - this is FICTION REMEMBER) so that I could get them out of the book and so that the book could end! They were all so miserable anyway!
Don't read this book unless you are truly desperate for a soap opera gone REALLY BAD!!!!!!
Helpful Score: 10
I agree with Lynn...this was an absolute waste of a book. I too just wanted the suffering (mine as the reader) to end. I guess the only reason I kept reading was to see if it got any better. I stopped reading before the last few pages just because I didn't care what happened to any of the characters.
Helpful Score: 7
Classic and heart-breaking. One of her best novels.
Helpful Score: 4
This one can be a tear jerker. Sad and realistic at the same time.
Helpful Score: 4
I read this many years ago and it has stayed with me. Great story.
Helpful Score: 3
Anne Tyler makes you feel as though you are living with these characters. I couldnt get enough of this book- it deals with three siblings, all of whom compete against each other and an abusive but stong mom
Helpful Score: 2
This is such a wonderful, enticing, vivid, and beautiful story. Dark, detailed, luscious.
Helpful Score: 2
Family and the memories of childhood and what makes us strong....sometimes full of hate, anger and questions of "why" ? I enjoyed the story and felt connected to the characters.
Helpful Score: 1
Good Book. Quirky, and serious. happy and sad. Well written
Helpful Score: 1
author from Marin County, CA my hometown so I enjoyed the geographical discussions.
Helpful Score: 1
The quintessential Anne Tyler read, in my opinion. Quirky characters. Tyler is able to lead the reader to an understanding of their behaviors, and crafts a completely satisfying story.
Helpful Score: 1
If you have read any Anne Tyler, you'll know that her books are character driven, as is this one - the story of a family, brought together by their dying mother.
Helpful Score: 1
A book that should join those few that every literate person will have to read." THE BOSTON GLOBE Pearl Tull is nearing the end of her life but not her memory. Ever since 1944 when her husband left her, she has raised her three very different children on her own. Now grown, they have gathered together--with anger, with hope, and with a beautiful, harsh, and dazzling story to tell....
Helpful Score: 1
The story begins in 1944 with Pearl and her three children being abandoned by husband and father. Over the years they all yearn for the "perfect" family.
Funny, heartwarming, wise..It is from start to finish, superb entertainment. The New York Times
From the back cover: "Pearl Tull is nearing the end of her life but not her memory. It was a Sunday night in 1944 when her husband left the little row house on Baltimore's Calvert St, abandoning Pearl to raise their three children alone: Jenny, high-spirited and determined, nurturing to strangers but distant to those she loves; the oldest son, Cody, a wild and incorrigible youth possessed by the lure of power and money; and sweet and clumsy Ezra, Pearl's favorite...."
Anne Tyler at her best!
i'm not sure why I struggle so much with Ann Tyler's books, as they are loved by many, but they just leave me depressed. The whole family here is dysfunctional, and the mother was a raging tyrant whose cruelty turned me off from her first rage.
I didn't feel I had anything to learn here. No more Anne Tyler books for me.
I didn't feel I had anything to learn here. No more Anne Tyler books for me.
The story was very flat and did not draw me in.
Excellent story. Well defined characters. I thouroughly enjoyed this book. I've read it 3 times.
Another great Anne Tyler book. This is about the Tull family: Pearl, Buck, Jenny, Cody and Ezra.
A book that will touch you heart.
Rambling story of the Tull family - mother Pearl whose anger at being abandoned by her husband turns her love for her children into a devouring force, eldest son Cody who rebels against the strictures, favored son Ezra whose attempts to feed his family spiritually morphs into the very real restaurant of the title, and daughter Jenny, who struggles to not repeat her mother's life.
Anne Tyler is one of my favorite novelists, and this is one of my favorite Tyler books. A lovely book about family.
Well worth your time! Tyler is a true storyteller - keeps you turning pages.
Anne Tyler is a master of these types of family dramas that tell the stories of "ordinary" people. This is a terrific novel.
Meet the Tull Family. Jenny, the daughter, high spirited and determined. She was nurturing to strangers but distant to those she loved...Cody, the oldest son. He was wild and incorrigible, possessed by the lure of power and money...Ezra, the gentle son. He was his mother's favorite, living out the dream of a "perfect" family that could never be his own...gathering around the memories of Pearl, their mother, whos fainal act of life affirms their own.
Another great novel by Anne Tyler. This complicated family of a single mother, three children, in the 50's was mesmerizing. ..had to keep reading to see how it turned out. Very thoughtful and deeply emotional. ...love her way with words!
Meet the Tull family ... Jenny, the daughter, high-spirited and determined. She was nurturing to strangers but distant to those she loved . . . Cody, the oldest son. He was wild and incorrigible, possessed by the lure of power and money . . . Ezra, the gentle son. He was his mother's favorite, living out the dream of a "perfect" family that could never be his own . . . gathering around the memories of Pearl, their mother, whose final act of life affirms their own.
Much like Anne Tyler's other writings. Full of family happenings and some mystery...Really don't know what to say except, what else have you got to do? Go ahead, read it, you'll get something out of it.
Set in Baltimore, Maryland, in the 1960s, Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant opens with an aged Pearl musing upon her life and giving instructions to her younger son, Ezra, to invite everyone in her address book to her funeral. And who is in that book? Beck, of course. He never divorced Pearl, but he walked away from the family when their children, Cody, Ezra, and Jenny were fourteen, eleven, and nine years of age, respectively. When Cody graduates from high school, Pearl muses about her nearly-grown children: Beck would not have known them, and they, perhaps, would not have known Beck. They never asked about him. Didnt that show how little importance a father has? The invisible man. The absent presence. Pearl felt a tinge of angry joy. Pearl continues to be proud of what she has done on her own; and certainly, all three of Pearl and Becks children, by employment and outward appearances, become successful adults. Cody is an efficiency consultant, Ezra is a restaurant owner and Jenny is a pediatrician. Pearl has every reason to be proud of them. Nonetheless, the Tulls are a seriously dysfunctional family, for Cody is consumed with anger, jealousy, and suspicion; Ezra yearns for the family that never was, and Jenny is unable to maintain a stable, loving marriage. Each of them is simultaneously driven from and drawn to the natal family.
much more at:http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=5607
ps i dont remember reading this one!
much more at:http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=5607
ps i dont remember reading this one!
I have read her books before and not liked them, but this was different. Her writing style is excellent, if only I could have liked one of the characters. Nonetheless, it was very poignant and hard to put down.
Never read it.
this is a great story..however this copy is slightly old and yellowed..still a good read!!
Pearl Tull is nearing the end of her life but not her memory. It was Sunday night in 1944 when her husband left the little row house, abandoing Pearl to raise their three children alone: Jenny, high-spirited and determineed, nurturing to strangers but distant to those she loves; the oldest son, Cody, a wild and incorrigible youth possessed by the lure of power and money; and sweet and clumsy Ezra, Pearl's favorite, who never stops yearning for the "perfect" family that could never be his own. Now grown, they have gathered together again---with anger, with hope and with a beautiful, harsh, and dazzling story to tell...
Pearl Tull is nearing the end of her life but not her memory. It was a Sunday night in 1944 when her husband left the little row house on BAltimore's Calvert Street, abandoning Pearl to raise their three children alone: Jenny, high-spirited and determined, nurturing to strangers but distant to those she loves; the oldest son, Cody, a wild and incorrigible youth possessed by the lure of power and money; and sweet and clumsy Ezra, Pearl's favorite, who never stops yearning for the "perfect" family that could never be his own.
Now grown, they have gathered together again-with anger, with hope, and with a beautiful, harsh, and dazzling story to tell...
Now grown, they have gathered together again-with anger, with hope, and with a beautiful, harsh, and dazzling story to tell...
