Tom Lake

I feel the absence of these characters acutely. As if I’d been a part of the story. That’s what Patchett does best. She makes it impossible to not close your heart around every single character that graces those wonderful pages of hers. I mourn the closing of this book.

okay so i listened to this and meryl streep is the one who reads it and wowowowow she made this experience much more enjoyable. think she adds great depth to the story.

this story is cozy and i think patchett does a good job weaving the past and present timelines together. this was also my first patchett book and i really enjoyed her writing, and def want to read some of her other books.

i liked that this was a story about just like normal people talking about normal problems or issues theyve faced in life. however, because nothing too crazy happens this book can definitely feel boring or like a slog at times. like theres times where we talk about swimming or play rehearsals for a long stretch of time and yeah it can feel like its dragging on. tbh if i had read this rather than meryl streep reading it to me interjecting her personality and different voices, my rating probably would have been a 3 star.

Excellent writing…keeps you interested with a few surprises

A quirky book about parents who are re-living their early years of a summer full of wild and reckless choices around a play they were in. One of the actors went on to get some fame and we find out just how entangled everyone really was, and how it all could have been different if not for a few shifting moments. One of those traditional story-stories where you feel like you are laying around a rec room hearing some lore from a loved one. Especially special if you do the audiobook and that illusion of family lore can be slipped into your subconscious by Meryl Streep. Admittedly, I loathe celebrity narrators, and I hate when they do books, but she did a great job. Was she the best last year? Eh. But it suited the story at least.

I'm torn, honestly. Up until the last ten pages I thought it was a bit boring and then the end happened and I was kinda surprised. Not the best I've read but not the worst either.

This book is a bittersweet walk through a woman’s memories and her current life with her three daughters. It was honest and real, beautiful and sad. I really enjoyed this book. ❤️

This was a quiet story that grew on me the more I read.

Good but a little slow. Meryl Streep was a fabulous narrator.

SLOGGED through this. And I love Ann Patchett.

Ugh I love Ann, I want her to be my best friend

shoutout emily webb, shoutout michigan

A little too earnest for my personal taste, but there are still some moments of real beauty. Nonetheless, a good story to shepherd me through a period of illness.

Ann Patchett was cooking

Why do you all refuse to call him Peter

Although slow at first, once we get to Tom Lake, it feels like you’re really there. The book has such a nostalgic feeling to it. The author does a good job of connecting you to the characters- I felt like I really knew them. She also makes the setting of the cherry farm and the lake so vivid for the reader. The ending of this book was satisfying and sad all at the same time. This book felt like home.

This book was about life. It was slow paced (but in a good way) with just enough excitement to keep me wanting to listen longer (I listened to the audiobook). It was creatively written and had some unique characters/plots which I thought was a nice break from the usual similarities of many fiction books. I felt like I was right there with the characters. I would recommend this book :)

         Prior to this book, I had not successfully completed an Ann Patchett book.  I have tried, but I have failed.  She’s a hugely popular author, so I kept trying, but good lord she’s boring.  I realize that she’s not boring to everybody, so I apologize if somehow you find my opinion on Ann Patchett offensive, but we all have our literary preferences, and paragraphs that drone on for pages (ugh) have never been my favorite. 

            This story is, in fact, not about Peter Duke.  It’s about Lara and her family, and how she ended up on a cherry farm in Michigan.  While the summer of Peter Duke takes up a decent portion of this book, the romance between Lara and Peter does not.  I don’t even feel like the summer of Peter Duke ended in much of a mess.  It seems to me that it was the adult version of summer camp that ended much the way summer camps end, including a torn Achillies.  While the story of Lara’s film career and how she ended up at Tom Lake is the basis of this book, this book is about Lara finding her way to the cherry farm, her husband, and the contentment of the life she ended up with.  Lara did find herself in love with Peter Duke that summer at Tom Lake, when she was twenty-four and he was excruciatingly charming.  Lara also found some great friends and eventually realized she didn’t really want to be an actress. 

            The back-and-forth timelines are annoying to me, however, in this case it worked.  This book was Lara telling the story to her daughters when they were all cooped up together due to Covid-19.  I was frustrated that the Covid-19 part wasn’t divulged until pretty far into the book, I just assumed the family was super close.  I’m not entirely sure why that irritated me like it did, but it stuck with me through the whole thing.  I couldn’t just let it go.

            Patchett is long-winded, and that is one of my least favorite things about books.  Breaks in a page make the reader feel like they’re making progress, so page after page without a paragraph break is daunting.  Exhaustive sentences are also frustrating to get through; half the time you get to the end of the sentence and don’t recall how it started.  For whatever reason, books like this seem to always be critically acclaimed, like a sentence that lasts half a page somehow means the book is superbly well-written.  However, for many readers, it’s a turn-off and can lead to reluctant readers.  I’m a big cheerleader for literacy, I want everybody to find books they enjoy, and that’s especially true for reluctant readers.  I understand that even book snobs need material to read, so Ann Patchett will never lack there.  The story was well-constructed and I did finish it, but I wouldn’t recommend this book to anybody that struggles with reading, whether it’s the mechanics or the motivation. 

Lovely audiobook narrated by Meryl Streep (who can do absolutely do no wrong). This is a story my grandmother would have loved; maybe even my aunt. Has a very pastoral setting and conversational cadence. It was a sweet story, not particularly fascinating, but not bad in any way either.

A gentle, beautifully written novel.

Lara and her husband live on a cherry farm in Michigan. During the 2020 pandemic, Lara has all three girls home as the world shuts down. As they pick cherries and do life together, Lara and her daughters discuss the time Lara was an actress and dated a film star, Peter Duke.

This is a beautiful story built around the play Our Town. As Lara and her daughters talk about the past, they learn about themselves and one another and how love has many faces. One scene seemed out of character for Lara, so I dropped half of a star. Otherwise, it's a quietly beautiful study of everyday people as only Ann Patchett can craft.