2024 the best fiction books of 2023 review

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#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A REESE’S BOOK CLUB PICK READ BY MERYL STREEP

In this beautiful and moving novel about family, love, and growing up, Ann Patchett once again proves herself one of America’s finest writers.

“Patchett leads us to a truth that feels like life rather than literature.” —The Guardian

In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.

Tom Lake is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents have led before their children were born. Both hopeful and elegiac, it explores what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart. As in all of her novels, Ann Patchett combines compelling narrative artistry with piercing insights into family dynamics. The result is a rich and luminous story, told with profound intelligence and emotional subtlety, that demonstrates once again why she is one of the most revered and acclaimed literary talents working today.

Reviewer: switterbug/Betsey Van Horn
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: A Buddhist blend of Grovers Corners and northern Michigan
Review: Appreciating the little things in life, the joy of day-to-day existence, and the love for your family and your work is what Tom Lake meant to me. Tom Lake refers to a (fictional) summer stock theater in northern Michigan in the 1980s, close to the locale of the current 2020 timeline--- a cherry farm (and pears, and apples). The late eighties marked a luminous period for protagonist/narrator Lara, a time that she walked the fine line between adulting and adulthood, coming of age amid a torrent of drama that swept her up in its fury. And then there was Our Town, the play within the novel that portrayed Lara’s life on the stage (and backstage).Lara is telling her three twenty-something daughters about her short stint as an actress in her twenties, and the brief romantic affair with Peter Duke, a famous movie star before he was a famous movie star. The gorgeous cherry farm backdrop is like a staid but vivid character, with Lara, husband Joe, and the three girls all together for the first time in a while. Due to the pandemic, they don’t have the usual crew to help pick the fruit, so the storytelling unfolds as the family works the orchard during harvest time. Like the cherries, some parts are sweet, some tart, and all of it is juicy.I felt the air, inhaled the scents, the cherries, the land and the whole layout of the farm while reading. And there is the kindness, too, of this family, whose flaws are also part of their strengths. The chaos of Lara’s life as a young woman is juxtaposed with the serenity of her life now, and the two timelines fluidly alternate, sometimes gently, at other times with piercing intensity. And every storyline has at least two. So, when you read about Lara in the past, or present, you just can’t help sniffing around to see the connections, of what surprise is crouched in the corner or hidden behind the door. I verily slipped into Lara’s character and imagined what decisions I would make as her, given so many pressing options and dilemmas.Ann Patchett nails it every time, her characters are complex and her graceful pace is measured even when events are brutal. Lara is a radiant work-in-progress during her young years, many readers will see themselves in her. I was a local stage actor in Austin during my twenties, so I immersed myself in Tom Lake, pretending to be Lara acting as Emily Gibbs and then back to Lara again. The two timelines showed the difference between the fiery summer love of youth and the deep, tender, and mature love of family that you helped to create. The high points were explosive, even when they were pin-drop quiet. Lara’s low points stirred me almost to tears; I could feel her pulse against mine.If you’ve never seen a production or haven’t read Our Town, you’re about to get a spoiler’s worth in the novel. But I think Ms. Patchett has surmised that most of her readers are already familiar with Thornton Wilder’s play. She coalesced Our Town and Tom Lake together in a way that reveals her refined skill of integration. Tom Lake and Our Town were separate but conjoined. I know that doesn’t make sense, but it will when you read the book. She also quotes Chekhov at pique (and even peak) intervals; she shares the Russian writer’s work with spare but specific devotion.I recently learned that Patchett has never owned a smart phone, and doesn’t herself do social media (she talks to the camera and her staff completes the rest). She has never used Google, or researched on Wiki—she does it the old-fashioned way. And perhaps she’s that slightly eccentric but lovely gentlewoman you see carrying paper road maps!Tom Lake is thoughtful, deft, and life-affirming. (It isn’t a pandemic novel, even though it takes place during that time). There’s comedy, tragedy, drama—a look-back-at-your- own-life kind of book. It’s classic Ann Patchett.There’s this passage that really tickled me from the book. It’s toward the end but not a spoiler, it’s thematic with the rest of the narrative. Lara was so busy recounting the past for her daughters that she forgot to make lunch, which she said she should have been working on while talking. “The past need not be so all-encompassing that it renders us incapable of making egg salad.” Priorities!

Reviewer: Donna Greenberg
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Ann Patchett's shimmering prose keeps the reader engaged
Review: I have always found Ann Patchett's writing full of lyricism and light. Whole paragraphs beg to be savored and reread.I was first introduced to her writing in Bel Canto, which told an incredible story that I remember, all these years later.Some of her books really pulled me in; others took longer to get into. But they are all beautifully written.Her newest book, Tom Lake, took a bit of time to warm up to. The earliest pages were somewhat confusing. She tells a tale in two separate parts, one about her past as an actress; and the other about her current life with her family, on a cherry farm.For much of the book, I found her family life less interesting, and impatiently waited for her to return to her earlier days. However, as the book continued, I became more engrossed in her children and her husband.The story is full of nostalgia and what-ifs. Anyone of a certain age has probably experienced these episodes. I found her main and subsidiary characters intriguing and well-developed. There are also a few delightful twists in the book.I recommend Tom Lake to fans of Ann Patchett and literary fiction.

Reviewer: MommaLayne
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Luminous
Review: **"Tom Lake"** by Ann Patchett is a beautifully crafted novel that intertwines themes of love, memory, and family dynamics against the backdrop of a cherry orchard in Northern Michigan. Set in the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return home to help with the harvest, prompting them to ask their mother to recount the captivating story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared a passionate romance during her time at a theater company called Tom Lake.As Lara reflects on her youthful love and the choices she made, her daughters begin to reevaluate their own lives and their relationship with her. Through these conversations, the novel explores the complexities of love—both the exhilarating thrill of early romance and the deeper, more intricate bonds of marriage and parenthood. Patchett's lyrical prose and keen insights make "Tom Lake" a meditation on what it means to find happiness in a world that feels increasingly fragile. With her trademark emotional depth and narrative artistry, Patchett delivers a rich, luminous story that showcases her status as one of contemporary literature's most celebrated authors.

Reviewer: J. Gossert
Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Nothing special
Review: Normally any book that makes it to Reese's book pick is a must read for me. But this one was just ..... ok. It was a nice walk through a story but it just didn't grab me and make me want to turn the pages.

Reviewer: MichiganGal
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Thought Provoking
Review: I read the reviews on this book before I bought it and found them quite mixed. I guess our unique differences is what makes the world go around. So many seemed to find the book “boring” and lacking in a plot. I very much enjoyed it. My love of genealogy found it so wonderful that a mother would put her young life into words for her daughters to carry with them and pass along through the years. It helps, also, that I live in the Traverse City, Michigan area and am very aware of the beauty of this area. I love the way the author writes and describes things with a bit of humor around the edges. I believe the plot is - remember the trials and tribulations of your youth for they are what makes you the person you are today. The decisions Lara made in her youth were not always the best but, ultimately, she realized what was really important to her and went on to live a happy, fulfilling life.

Reviewer: Amazon Customer
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: What beautiful writing! This is a very interesting tale that takes place within the confines of Covid. It's great to have a story line that takes that into account, yet focuses on the family and their story, rather than the pandemic itself. The pandemic is the necessary backdrop that brings this story out. The complicated relationships between sisters, between mothers and daughters. This book kept my interest all the way through and I was sad to see it end.

Reviewer: Regina Gutiérrez Durán
Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Está muy bonito. Llegó a tiempo pero algo golpeado y maltratado.

Reviewer: Amazon Customer
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Such a well crafted novel which moves easily through the lives of Emily Duke Sebastian Joe and their families. I loved it

Reviewer: Shonar Lala
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Beautiful and captivating and comforting writing that keeps you engrossed - careful precise yet elegiac writing - oh to be on that farm!

Reviewer: Petra S.
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: YOU HAVE TO READ IT. This is one of them. One of the books where you get to live in someone else’s reality(fiction) and the story will stay with you, the characters will and people will again make more sense. It’s a book for romantics, life affirming, it’s real - you might cry - and it’s a story worth to remember!!