I read it a few years ago because so many people had said it was one of their favorite books growing up. I thought it was just okay.

Amazing book!!!!

I read it in my 20s and absolutely loved it.

I also liked Betty Smith’s book about a young newly wed couple. Can’t remember the name.

Anonymous wrote:Oh gosh. This is honestly my favorite book and I have read it maybe 20 times. It gives me comfort like a warm blanket. I’m sorry you aren’t enjoying it OP. It is such a wonderful book. I will say it changes a lot halfway through when she becomes older and gets a job. Maybe that part of the book will appeal more to you. I loved the everyday scenes of her childhood in Brooklyn the best myself.

+100
I picked up this book as an adult and read it for the first time. It has absolutely stuck with me and I think about it all the time. Wonderful book.

Sometimes if I don't have the patience to read a book, I find I do fine listening to it as an audiobook. That way, while listening to the book I can peel those potatoes, or fold that laundry, or trim the shrubs or wash the car or sew that button on that shirt or clean the bathroom or whatever the 10,000 other things are that I need to get done that don't actually require the use of my brain while doing them.

So in that vein, OP maybe you would enjoy the book more if it was an audiobook? It's on youtube. You could listen to it on your phone with headphones.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0LzHDW_SbI

What a wonderful book. Finish!

Anonymous wrote:Oh gosh. This is honestly my favorite book and I have read it maybe 20 times. It gives me comfort like a warm blanket. I’m sorry you aren’t enjoying it OP. It is such a wonderful book. I will say it changes a lot halfway through when she becomes older and gets a job. Maybe that part of the book will appeal more to you. I loved the everyday scenes of her childhood in Brooklyn the best myself.

Same, exactly! I read it every summer and have done since I was 12.

I’m OP. Thanks for all your insights. I’m sticking with it and appreciate your perspectives. I wish I had read it earlier.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh gosh. This is honestly my favorite book and I have read it maybe 20 times. It gives me comfort like a warm blanket. I’m sorry you aren’t enjoying it OP. It is such a wonderful book. I will say it changes a lot halfway through when she becomes older and gets a job. Maybe that part of the book will appeal more to you. I loved the everyday scenes of her childhood in Brooklyn the best myself.

I just finished my sixth or seventh read of it a few weeks back. I first read it in seventh grade and am now a mother of 4. So much goes over your head as a child and now there is a new heartbreak being more able to relate to Evy, Johnny, Katie and McGarrity than little Francie and Neeley. Ack! The scene where Johnny goes to bed and Katie in a rare show of affection, throws a sleepy arm over his chest. And he slowly removes it and stares silently at the ceiling all night.

So poignant! This shows Smith's skill as a writer. This happens after Johnny realized that Katie had "failed" a bit in her tough-love parenting, by sending kids alone to immunizations and then scolding poor Francie when her arm was infected, like it was her own fault.

Yet, Katie could also be heartbreakingly candid, like when Francie questioned her about possibly losing her viriginity to the charming sailor cad - the truthful one (horrible things could have happened to you) and the second truthful second one, "As a woman, I tell you it would have been special because there is only once in life you love that way."

Books are like many things - either you like it or you don't. It's like asking what the best topping is for hamburgers. Some may agree, some not.

Tree is my favorite book. Probably because I grew up as an inner city girl and so much of Francie's life mirrored mine. The characters, the settings, the things that happened were all familiar. This book is a stark story of what inner city life was like at the turn of the century.

I think what appeals most to me is how Betty Smith managed to cover so much of life in one book. Everything from imperfect parenting, to child molestation to first-job jitters to getting your heart broken by a sweet-talking con artist.

I can't get into books that are fantasy-based although others like them.

I read it earlier this summer. It gave me so much insight to that time period and the immigrant experience. Next time, anyone tells me how great things used to be, I will tell them to read this book.

It seemed semi-autobiograhical. Betty Smithwent to Michigan like Francie does at the end of the book.

Like lots of others, first read it around 11 or 12 and reread it a million times. It’s a strange book in that there is so much incident and not much plot, but I loved it. I related so strongly to Francie.

Love the book, audiobook and the movie!

I loved this book - thanks for the reminder. Maybe I will re-read

Anonymous wrote:Isn’t it a teen book?

Is there a law I don't know about that says you can't read Youth books? If so, than I am guilty! And so are all the adults who read Harry Potter, Hunger Games etc. If youths can read "adult" books than adults can read teen books!