Rating: 
Summary: great read!
Review: This axiously awaited tome nearly found me dropping it like a hot potato - the first page had me nervous. For shame on me, how could I doubt the extrodinary storytelling of Anne Tyler? I was soon consumed by the funky characters and intrigues of the Davitch family history and on-goings.I love these stories, as much for the superb writing as for the locations in Baltimore, a city I have learned to enjoy. I trully empathsized with the main charachter, Rebecca, who wondered what her life would have been like had she taken a different path. I too, have tried looking up old acqaintences, only to never reach out. Sometimes it is better not to know.
Rating:
Summary: Pure Pleasure.
Review: Reading an Anne Tyler novel is like eating fine chocolates-- pure pleasure. Or as Poppy says about the icing from his birthday cake: "It melted in my mouth. I held a bite in my mouth and it sat for just a second and then trickled, trickled down my throat, all that melting sweetness." Rebecca Davitch is a fifty-three year old mother, stepmother and widow who wakes up one morning and decides that she has gone down the wrong road in her life. Ms. Tyler says it much better than I: "Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person." (What a great first line!)The story is about how Rebecca wrestles with this belief and her ultimate conclusions about her life. As we expect from a Tyler novel, nothing earth shaking happens. There are no murders, train wrecks, no escaped prisoners, just the usual array of zany characters who are mired down in their day-to-day existence, not unlike many of the people I know and care about. Even though not a lot happens to these characters, they are far from dull. The writing is beautiful. There isn't a bland page. A delicious book. Ms. Tyler is one of our best writers.
Rating: 
Summary: Enter the Chaotic Life of Rebecca
Review: I have to be honest. I nearly put this book down within the first few pages, having been introduced to such characters named Biddy, Patch, NoNo, and Jeep. I mean REALLY, I was wondering what was up with Anne Tyler's choice of names. Nevertheless, I stuck with it and discovered that the unique nick-names (as later found out) are a benefit to keeping the family tree straight, saving the reader from what would otherwise cause the greatest of headaches... there are so many people in this book! That is how I know Tyler is a great author; she offers us a book of only 274 pages and gives us a story that is 1,000 pages in magnitude, a history of so many persons tucked into this easy-to-read package. "Back When We Were Grownups" truly deserves four and a half stars. (My best rating, being that I don't believe in a perfect score.) I truly empathized with the character of Rebecca, a widowed fifty-three year old woman whose sole responsibility seems to be as peace-maker to her riotous family; meanwhile, paying the bills as a professional party-planner at the "Open Arms." She seems to have lost her life, having given all her time to everything or everyone other than herself. She starts to wonder about the road less traveled and what makes this novel inviting is that she goes back to that road, years later, and picks up the journey. "Back When We Were Grownups" is a book about re-evaluating our choices, deciding whether we've carried our life or if life has carried us. This is a novel about the question of fate, if one has - somehow, accidentally - denied her own true destiny. In its conclusion, I had two distinct endings in mind. But, as if emphasizing the moral of her story, Anne Tyler gave me something I had not considered; something so subtle that it didn't seem to be the end. Even in its resolve, there is an emphasis that life cannot be predictable and yet, Tyler hints that one should respect that life is such a way. In "Back When We Were Grownups," Anne Tyler has brought forth the beauty that is life, examining all its disappointments and surprises. This is a very enjoyable read.
Rating:
Summary: On being an imposter in your own life
Review: We shall not cease from our exploration, and at the end of all our exploring, we shall arrive where we started and know the place for the first time--T.S. Eliott. Rebecca Davitch is in search of something vital she has left behind in this charming, quirky book. As always, the final discovery is much less entertaining than the search. Anne Tyler is a lovely writer full of life and sensitivity. The book ripples and sparkles not only with eccentric Tyler characters but also with phrases to be savored. "Back When We Were Grownups" is a rare new book full of soul and humanity. It also has the best opening line in memory. An excellent choice.
Rating:
Summary: Back When Reading Was Fun
Review: If you like to read for the sheer pleasure of funny insights, wise observations, deft descriptions, and colorful characters, you'll enjoy BACK WHEN WE WERE GROWNUPS (I love this title)! Rebecca Davitch is a caring and positive woman who holds together a large, cantankerous family of assorted relatives, children, stepchildren, ex-husbands and ex-wives. But did she make a wrong turn in the road 30 years ago? Her quest to answer this common midlife musing is what motivates her. I'm the author of a book for mothers, NEW PSALMS FOR NEW MOMS: A KEEPSAKE JOURNAL (Judson Press)that helps to nurture a Mom's spirituality. Rebecca could have used this spiritual base early on; then she wouldn't have been left looking only to selfish daughters and rude in-laws for support. In any case, I appreciated her insights and challenges as she steps back from her life at its mid-point and gives it a critical eye. I especially enjoyed the right-on portrayals of Rebecca's mother and aunt (who argue about 3-cent stamps) and Poppy (busy planning his 100th birthday). Midlife crisis was never so rewarding to read about. Thank you, Anne Tyler, for another well-written and entertaining book.
Rating:
Summary: warm and perceptive
Review: "There is no true life. Your true life is the one you end up with, whatever it may be." Poppy says this to Rebecca on his own 100th birthday. This old wisdom is a recurrent theme in almost all Ann Tyler's novels. And this one, "Back Where We Were Grownups", is again the pondering of all the "what if's" and the fantasy of being able to go back to the "fork" of one's life. And invariably, in Tyler's novels, the attempt to test out the road not taken would turn out to be disappointing and not what one fantasizes it to be. The only true life is the life that one has lived, including the decision to take one road over the other. Tyler's unique subtly is well and alive in this book again, after the slip in her last work. The prose and the characterization, with typical warmth and wit expected of Tyler, are once more making this novel a wonderful read. The only possible problem for readers, who have read most of Tyler's books, is that the story becomes almost too predictable. When Will Allenby reemerges as the head of Physics Department in a college, we know right away that he does not have much of a chance with Rebecca. Academics never score very high in Tyler's novels.
Rating:
Summary: Anne Tyler is the Best
Review: I loved this book so much that after I read it, I logged on here to read all 69 posted reviews just so I wouldn't have to let go of the story and characters just yet. When I started the next novel lined up on my nightstand I was inevitably disappointed - hardly anyone else can write line after line of perfect gems. I would have gone straight to another Anne Tyler novel if I hadn't already read all of them. I might just start over. For you other fans out there, make sure you don't miss her children's book, "Tumble Tower." My daughter independently decided it was her favorite book! Like mother like daughter I guess.
Rating:
Summary: A very Believable Family
Review: This is the story about Rebecca Davitch who at 53 wonders if her life has all been in error. The narrative revloves around the large Davitch family with all the jealousy,quarrels that make up families.From the onset you are drawn into the heart of this family and will either love them or find them quite tedious.Initially you are certain you will never keep the girls seperate with their peculiar names of Biddy,Patch,NoNo and Min-Foo. They are given such depth and dimension that you quickly know them as individuals with distinct and quirky personalities.Beck's thoughts about her present and her past make her so alive that we can almost feel at one with her. The other characters: Great Uncle Poppy, Beck's small town mother,Aunt Ida and her old beau Will Allenby are so well-developed you feel you also know them personally. The various assorted children also contribute greatly to this story. The plot revolves greatly around the family gatherings and food seems to play a large part in the book.Anne Tyler has captured all the factors at play in a large family so well. It is a thoroughly delightful, enjoyable book.
Rating: 
Summary: 3 Yawns
Review: Geez, I kept waiting for SOMETHING to happen in this novel. Instead, it's a lumbering tale of a 50-ish widow surrounded by a bunch of self-centered family members, who sits back and wonders how come she's turned out the way she has. DUH! By surrounding yourself with selfish people, by allowing people to call you Beck when you hate the name, by wallowing in "what ifs" and on and on and on. I'm so tired of people in real life whining that their lives were not supposed to have turned out "this way". Well, whose has??? I was really hoping that this book would have found the way to tell people "learn to appreciate and thrive in what your life has become, whether or not it's the life you planned to have" -- but this book didn't do it! It ended as apathetically as it started.
Rating:
Summary: Classic Anne Tyler,
Review: This book will not disappoint Tyler fans. The same quirky characters. A pleasant read, but not a book you will keep to reread.
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