Anne Tyler
Fiction
I love Anne Tyler. I fell hard for her in my honors junior English class, when my teacher made us read Dinner at The Homesick Restaurant (great book, go read it now). So I was excited when I saw she had a new title coming out. Her writing style is practically perfect: you can tell she puts so much thought into each and every word. Sadly, I wish the same could’ve been said for the plot of this book.
The Beginner’s Goodbye is about a man named Aaron. At the beginning of the book, he talks about how his wife is back from the dead. Then the timeline jumps to what his life was like right after she died. His sister does her best to help him, as does his co-workers and the nice guy renovating his house (a tree fell on it and basically destroyed it, also killing his wife in the process). By the end of the book we realize that Aaron is…well, I won’t spoil it. Needless to say, I was quite confused for a bit until I realized what was going on.
Much as I liked all the characters (except for the fact that his sister’s name is Nandina, which sounds totally made-up and kind of took me out of the story every time I read it), Anne Tyler has an annoying habit of skipping over the good parts. I really can’t say what she skips over that annoys me because it’s too big a spoiler, but I was peeved when I realized we wouldn’t get to see those scenes.
I would recommend The Beginner’s Goodbye to hardcore Anne Tyler fans, but if you’re new to her, I wouldn’t start out with this one.
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