Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant : A Novel

Rating:
Summary: Really A Great Experience!
Review: Anne Tyler is quirky, but a master writer and this is her best! Her way with a story is amazing! I've read twelve of Tyler's novels and this is by far my favorite. You can read the description and storyline yourself. This is outstadning fiction!!

Rating:
Summary: Really A Great Experience!
Review: Anne Tyler is quirky, but a master writer and this is her best! Her way with a story is amazing! I've read twelve of Tyler's novels and this is by far my favorite. You can read the description and storyline yourself. This is outstadning fiction!!

Rating:
Summary: Dinner table conflict as a metaphor for life
Review: Anne Tyler uses multiple points of view in this, one of her best loved books, tale to flesh out all the relationships and conflicts in the Tull family. As we hear each character's story in his or her own voice, another piece of the puzzle falls into place until we are left with a more or less intact understanding of how things came to be the way they are. Like all of Tyler's books, Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant is peopled with eccentric oddballs who are borderline social misfits, just working at trying to get through the day and make sense of their lives - but it always seems to degenerate into dinner table conflict.

Rating:
Summary: Another great book from Tyler
Review: Anne Tyler weaves her magic through family life once again in this wonderfully descriptive book. Her portrayal of characters is superb and the family relationships make for a melting pot of fine reading.

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding
Review: Anne Tyler's best...I loved every minute of this book. Each character is complex and interesting in their own way. I love how the author reveals each character - a little bit at a time. You don't know their full story or motivation until the end of the book. Very engaging.

Rating:
Summary: Great book; Tyler is extraordinary
Review: As with all of Tyler's books, I loved Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant. Her characters are extremely interesting. She, once again, goes deep into the minds of people who live somewhat disfunctional lives and have incredibly unbelievable thoughts about themselves and the loved-ones in their life. I could not put this book down. It kept my interest all the way through. I am a huge fan of Anne Tyler.

Rating:
Summary: The Typical Dysfunctional Family
Review: Dinner at the Homesick Resaurant engages the reader by sharing a slightly altering story as it is told by each member of the family. Pearly Tull is the initial character of the novel and begins by describing the chain of events, such as her husband leaving, which lead her into single-handedly raising her children. Like a typical family of the 1930's, the Tulls are struggling to financially and emotionally make it. One by one, the children eventually grow up and begin lives of their own: Cody becomes a businessman like his father, Jenny goes to college and marries Harley Baines, and Ezra stays in town to run Mrs. Scarlatti's restaurant. Ezra's dream is to, just once, have his entirely family seated at the restaurant for a content family dinner. However, his mother, Pearl, seems to enjoy a little conflict and constantly instigates one. Once Ezra inherits the restaurant, he decides to slightly alter the menu, by switching to a homestyle variety of foods. He figures that this "home-cooked" meal can ease his homesick customers, but honestly, what does he know about home?

Rating:
Summary: The Typical Dysfunctional Family
Review: Dinner at the Homesick Resaurant engages the reader by sharing a slightly altering story as it is told by each member of the family. Pearly Tull is the initial character of the novel and begins by describing the chain of events, such as her husband leaving, which lead her into single-handedly raising her children. Like a typical family of the 1930's, the Tulls are struggling to financially and emotionally make it. One by one, the children eventually grow up and begin lives of their own: Cody becomes a businessman like his father, Jenny goes to college and marries Harley Baines, and Ezra stays in town to run Mrs. Scarlatti's restaurant. Ezra's dream is to, just once, have his entirely family seated at the restaurant for a content family dinner. However, his mother, Pearl, seems to enjoy a little conflict and constantly instigates one. Once Ezra inherits the restaurant, he decides to slightly alter the menu, by switching to a homestyle variety of foods. He figures that this "home-cooked" meal can ease his homesick customers, but honestly, what does he know about home?

Rating:
Summary: Hands-down the best Anne Tyler (so far)
Review: First I have to admit my bias ... I have read every Anne Tyler and will read them all again. That said, this is easily my favorite. Anne Tyler's gift is in presenting the reader with the extraordinary lives of ordinary people and polishing them into sparkling clarity. This is not a book for the plot-driven reader (nor are any of Tyler's). The plot seems to almost swirl around the sometimes bewildered characters, bringing their true selves into sharp, unsympathetic focus. The soul of this novel is in joining the Tull family members on their respective journeys ... the mother, Pearl, into her fears and regrets and resolutions at death (didn't blow a plot point, that's there on the first page), and each of the children into discovering how to soothe their own wounds and somehow become a family. This book is about pain, love, feeling like a stranger in your own family, forgiveness, loss, and allowing yourself and the people around you to be imperfect. Please read it!

Rating:
Summary: disturbing and touching
Review: For me, when it comes to movies and books I often feel that there are a lot of good "beginning's" and "middle's", but the "endings" tend to fall apart. I'm glad to say I felt this book was the opposite. This is my fourth Anne Tyler book and I was a little put off at first by the depressing characters, but that helped add emotion to the way the story resolved. I was surprised at how emotional I became after finishing this book. It was as if, I had just lived with the characters instead of reading about them(to paraprhrase another Amazon review.) Can't wait to read and live with my next Tyler novel!