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Book Reviews of Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant

Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant
Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant
Author: Anne Tyler
ISBN-13: 9780099916406
ISBN-10: 0099916401
Publication Date: 9/17/1992
Rating:
  • Currently 3.9/5 Stars.
 7

3.9 stars, based on 7 ratings
Publisher: Vintage Uk
Book Type: Paperback
Reviews: Amazon | Write a Review

36 Book Reviews submitted by our Members...sorted by voted most helpful

reviewed Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant on + 106 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 13
I guess it isn't possible to give a book less than 1/2 of a star.

When I think of the absolute WORST BOOK I have ever SUFFERED through in my 40 plus years of avid reading this book jumps right to the top!

When I read a book I want at least ONE character that I can like, that I can cheer for, that I can care what happens to! This book did not have such a character - NOT ONE. It has a totally disfunctional family, none of which like each other - NO SURPRISE there!! No one would like these people. As I got further and further into this book I just wanted them all to die, (no that isn't HORRIBLE - this is FICTION REMEMBER) so that I could get them out of the book and so that the book could end! They were all so miserable anyway!

Don't read this book unless you are truly desperate for a soap opera gone REALLY BAD!!!!!!
reviewed Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant on
Helpful Score: 10
I agree with Lynn...this was an absolute waste of a book. I too just wanted the suffering (mine as the reader) to end. I guess the only reason I kept reading was to see if it got any better. I stopped reading before the last few pages just because I didn't care what happened to any of the characters.
reviewed Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant on + 16 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 7
Classic and heart-breaking. One of her best novels.
reviewed Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant on + 144 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 4
This one can be a tear jerker. Sad and realistic at the same time.
kathyk avatar reviewed Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant on
Helpful Score: 4
I read this many years ago and it has stayed with me. Great story.
reviewed Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant on + 391 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 3
Anne Tyler makes you feel as though you are living with these characters. I couldnt get enough of this book- it deals with three siblings, all of whom compete against each other and an abusive but stong mom
reviewed Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant on + 2 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
This is such a wonderful, enticing, vivid, and beautiful story. Dark, detailed, luscious.
sumrwind avatar reviewed Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant on + 135 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
Family and the memories of childhood and what makes us strong....sometimes full of hate, anger and questions of "why" ? I enjoyed the story and felt connected to the characters.
reviewed Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant on + 4 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
Good Book. Quirky, and serious. happy and sad. Well written
reviewed Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant on + 36 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
author from Marin County, CA my hometown so I enjoyed the geographical discussions.
reviewed Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant on + 120 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
The quintessential Anne Tyler read, in my opinion. Quirky characters. Tyler is able to lead the reader to an understanding of their behaviors, and crafts a completely satisfying story.
reviewed Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant on + 3 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
If you have read any Anne Tyler, you'll know that her books are character driven, as is this one - the story of a family, brought together by their dying mother.
reviewed Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant on + 988 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
A book that should join those few that every literate person will have to read." THE BOSTON GLOBE Pearl Tull is nearing the end of her life but not her memory. Ever since 1944 when her husband left her, she has raised her three very different children on her own. Now grown, they have gathered together--with anger, with hope, and with a beautiful, harsh, and dazzling story to tell....
reviewed Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant on + 19 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
The story begins in 1944 with Pearl and her three children being abandoned by husband and father. Over the years they all yearn for the "perfect" family.
reviewed Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant on + 15 more book reviews
Funny, heartwarming, wise..It is from start to finish, superb entertainment. The New York Times
reviewed Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant on + 3 more book reviews
From the back cover: "Pearl Tull is nearing the end of her life but not her memory. It was a Sunday night in 1944 when her husband left the little row house on Baltimore's Calvert St, abandoning Pearl to raise their three children alone: Jenny, high-spirited and determined, nurturing to strangers but distant to those she loves; the oldest son, Cody, a wild and incorrigible youth possessed by the lure of power and money; and sweet and clumsy Ezra, Pearl's favorite...."
reviewed Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant on + 334 more book reviews
Anne Tyler at her best!
reviewed Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant on + 628 more book reviews
i'm not sure why I struggle so much with Ann Tyler's books, as they are loved by many, but they just leave me depressed. The whole family here is dysfunctional, and the mother was a raging tyrant whose cruelty turned me off from her first rage.
I didn't feel I had anything to learn here. No more Anne Tyler books for me.
reviewed Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant on
The story was very flat and did not draw me in.
reviewed Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant on + 6 more book reviews
Excellent story. Well defined characters. I thouroughly enjoyed this book. I've read it 3 times.
reviewed Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant on + 36 more book reviews
Another great Anne Tyler book. This is about the Tull family: Pearl, Buck, Jenny, Cody and Ezra.
reviewed Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant on + 91 more book reviews
A book that will touch you heart.
Readnmachine avatar reviewed Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant on + 1472 more book reviews
Rambling story of the Tull family - mother Pearl whose anger at being abandoned by her husband turns her love for her children into a devouring force, eldest son Cody who rebels against the strictures, favored son Ezra whose attempts to feed his family spiritually morphs into the very real restaurant of the title, and daughter Jenny, who struggles to not repeat her mother's life.
reviewed Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant on + 43 more book reviews
Anne Tyler is one of my favorite novelists, and this is one of my favorite Tyler books. A lovely book about family.
reviewed Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant on
Well worth your time! Tyler is a true storyteller - keeps you turning pages.
reviewed Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant on + 8 more book reviews
Anne Tyler is a master of these types of family dramas that tell the stories of "ordinary" people. This is a terrific novel.
Susanaque avatar reviewed Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant on + 422 more book reviews
Meet the Tull Family. Jenny, the daughter, high spirited and determined. She was nurturing to strangers but distant to those she loved...Cody, the oldest son. He was wild and incorrigible, possessed by the lure of power and money...Ezra, the gentle son. He was his mother's favorite, living out the dream of a "perfect" family that could never be his own...gathering around the memories of Pearl, their mother, whos fainal act of life affirms their own.
Tunerlady avatar reviewed Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant on + 581 more book reviews
Another great novel by Anne Tyler. This complicated family of a single mother, three children, in the 50's was mesmerizing. ..had to keep reading to see how it turned out. Very thoughtful and deeply emotional. ...love her way with words!
reviewed Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant on + 58 more book reviews
Meet the Tull family ... Jenny, the daughter, high-spirited and determined. She was nurturing to strangers but distant to those she loved . . . Cody, the oldest son. He was wild and incorrigible, possessed by the lure of power and money . . . Ezra, the gentle son. He was his mother's favorite, living out the dream of a "perfect" family that could never be his own . . . gathering around the memories of Pearl, their mother, whose final act of life affirms their own.
reviewed Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant on + 52 more book reviews
Much like Anne Tyler's other writings. Full of family happenings and some mystery...Really don't know what to say except, what else have you got to do? Go ahead, read it, you'll get something out of it.
reviewed Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant on + 47 more book reviews
Set in Baltimore, Maryland, in the 1960s, Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant opens with an aged Pearl musing upon her life and giving instructions to her younger son, Ezra, to invite everyone in her address book to her funeral. And who is in that book? Beck, of course. He never divorced Pearl, but he walked away from the family when their children, Cody, Ezra, and Jenny were fourteen, eleven, and nine years of age, respectively. When Cody graduates from high school, Pearl muses about her nearly-grown children: Beck would not have known them, and they, perhaps, would not have known Beck. They never asked about him. Didnt that show how little importance a father has? The invisible man. The absent presence. Pearl felt a tinge of angry joy. Pearl continues to be proud of what she has done on her own; and certainly, all three of Pearl and Becks children, by employment and outward appearances, become successful adults. Cody is an efficiency consultant, Ezra is a restaurant owner and Jenny is a pediatrician. Pearl has every reason to be proud of them. Nonetheless, the Tulls are a seriously dysfunctional family, for Cody is consumed with anger, jealousy, and suspicion; Ezra yearns for the family that never was, and Jenny is unable to maintain a stable, loving marriage. Each of them is simultaneously driven from and drawn to the natal family.
much more at:http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=5607

ps i dont remember reading this one!
reviewed Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant on + 628 more book reviews
I have read her books before and not liked them, but this was different. Her writing style is excellent, if only I could have liked one of the characters. Nonetheless, it was very poignant and hard to put down.
reviewed Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant on + 3 more book reviews
Never read it.
zoehunter avatar reviewed Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant on + 21 more book reviews
this is a great story..however this copy is slightly old and yellowed..still a good read!!
reviewed Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant on + 711 more book reviews
Pearl Tull is nearing the end of her life but not her memory. It was Sunday night in 1944 when her husband left the little row house, abandoing Pearl to raise their three children alone: Jenny, high-spirited and determineed, nurturing to strangers but distant to those she loves; the oldest son, Cody, a wild and incorrigible youth possessed by the lure of power and money; and sweet and clumsy Ezra, Pearl's favorite, who never stops yearning for the "perfect" family that could never be his own. Now grown, they have gathered together again---with anger, with hope and with a beautiful, harsh, and dazzling story to tell...
joann avatar reviewed Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant on + 412 more book reviews
Pearl Tull is nearing the end of her life but not her memory. It was a Sunday night in 1944 when her husband left the little row house on BAltimore's Calvert Street, abandoning Pearl to raise their three children alone: Jenny, high-spirited and determined, nurturing to strangers but distant to those she loves; the oldest son, Cody, a wild and incorrigible youth possessed by the lure of power and money; and sweet and clumsy Ezra, Pearl's favorite, who never stops yearning for the "perfect" family that could never be his own.
Now grown, they have gathered together again-with anger, with hope, and with a beautiful, harsh, and dazzling story to tell...