Review to follow

I started reading this over a year ago and stopped. STUPID JENNY. This book is such a wonderful journey it's no wonder it's a classic. I came to understand the Nolan family, their faults and quirks and love for each other. Don't be stupid. Read this book. ( )

openlibrary
April 2020 group read in "everyone" club.
My husband's favorite book when he was an extremely reluctant student 4 decades ago... I think he subconsciously empathized because he had a very tough urban childhood, too.

Started to read it, but can't right now... too long and makes me too uncomfortable during this pandemic. It is beautifully written though and I do highly recommend it. Fascinating descriptions of what it meant to be truly 'working-poor.' ( )

Classic, enjoyable, innocent portrayal of a young girl growing up in NYC during the Great War. One of my favorite lines is when her mother pours a cup of coffee in the sink and says that she feels rich to be able to waste the coffee. I have read this special book several times. It is one that my mother and I were able to discuss together. ( )

Excellent portrait of a young girl and her family struggling to grow up in Brooklyn right before the war. The people are all so real and you ache for them and celebrate with them as they move through life. Another classic I am glad to have waited to read till I was older. ( )

This books is beautifully written. I fell in love from the first page and was so sad as I read, knowing that it would end soon. I will reread once I finish a couple others I stopped JUST TO READ A Tree Grows In Brooklyn. ( )

Wonderful saga of Francie and her brother and mother, Neeley and Katie, growing up and building character in the rich culture of Brooklyn. My read was a bit fractured and interrupted, but it had all the elements I loved about such novels. Few novels have characters as well-developed as Francie and to whom you feel intimately connected. ( )

This was a lovely story about a young girl and her brother, in Brooklyn, during the late teens (1916-ish). So simple and sweet, so innocent.
I really enjoyed how eloquently this was written. It was a beautiful story, well written without being overly intellectual.
To me, I think the main message here was: even though things look super-amazing outside the bubble of one's life, there is little that can actually compare to the wonder and splendor of one's own experiences, not matter how dingy they may appear to the outside world.

This book was sitting on my shelf for quite a while, I ended up donating it only to buy another copy from Books-A-Million. Finally, I picked it up and fell in love with it. I didn't know if I was ready for a family drama, but it turned out to be exactly what I needed at the exact moment I picked it up. Francie Nolan has soared up on the list of my favorite fictional characters of all time; to be honest, you might not like the book as much if you are a "realist". However, if you are a dreamer and see the world much differently than your peers, you will love it!

I particularly liked her relationship with her mother. Yes, it was a co-dependent relationship with a lack of affection, but this made the moments where affection was shown between them that much more powerful. Francie sees so much and understands so much, and you watch her grow and understand the world, to accept and make the most of the life she has, to find the light in the darkest circumstances. Yeah, I love this book and highly recommend it, especially if it has been sitting on your shelf collecting dust for the last five years. ( )

Among the most fervent and outspoken of coming-of-age novels in American literature that I've read, full to the brim with life sketches as pictorial as David Copperfield and with an epic scope as sweeping as East of Eden. Betty Smith invites us into a breathtaking depiction of New York with the same richness that Woody Allen's Manhattan did for the big screen, visualized from the perspective of an aspiring and headstrong Francie Nolan raised in the heart of poverty-stricken Brooklyn. This novel expresses a hope for American immigrants at the turn of the century that isn't to be found in Upton Sinclair's the Jungle, and although Francie's relatives are far from perfect, their love and care for each other is irrefutable and irrepressible. Francie is met with experiences and choices that are as various and unique as any uncommon family, and their stories are forever memorable as the small things that are best in a simple life. ( )

Although this is a piece of fiction, the postscript makes it clear that it is based in the author's own childhood and was written as such. It is therefore very easy to imagine the type of life Smith had growing up in what we would today consider abject poverty but with the love and support of her family. It is astounding, really, the resilience but also the innocence of the time, marked by hard work, precarious conditions and community. It's a wonderful coming of age story but also testimony of the time which was as changing as it is today. ( )

Francie’s story: a young impoverished girl growing up in Brooklyn at the start of the last century. Semi autobiographical novel, written in the 1940s. At once an historical document but also as fresh and pertinent as if it were written this morning. Francie pragmatically faces hardship and the tribulations of being female in a poverty-stricken district. Fantastic sense of time and place, with a likeable protagonist. ( )

I read this when I was about 12 and enjoyed it, bu tthink I must have missed alot back then.
It is like adopting another whole faamily. She brings you co sompletely into their time and life, it is wrenching to finish the book.
If you've always wanted to live in turn of the century to World War I Brooklyn, here is your chance ( )

As compelling a read as the first time I read it as a 13 year old girl half a century ago. Beautiful period piece that has stood up well through the passage of time. ( )

Story of a family living in early 1900?s in Brooklyn in poverty conditions and they survived.

i know this isn't a popular opinion, but this book is very much just okay for me. i thought maybe i'd like this better this time around, but i feel pretty much the same about it as the first time i read it over a decade ago. i really liked the first 70 or so pages. the next 50 were alright. the almost 250 after that a real slog where it felt like a collection of little stories she was trying to make work together as a whole; like she was stuffing together a bunch of vignettes that were supposed to be a cohesive story. and they fit together, but the writing was stiff and uninteresting and the stories themselves felt overdone. then it suddenly became more readable again, and i liked the last 75 or so pages.

"After Election, the politicians forgot their promises and enjoyed an earned rest until New Year, when they started work on the next Election."

i like her point, i like her message (except for some things toward the end that i wasn't totally on board with), i like the light she was shining on poverty and a way of life that was not supposed to be written about. it's just overly long and not the best book of its kind that tells this story. (1.5 stars)

from sept 2011: not particularly well written, but tells a clear picture of life in a certain time and place, for the poorer part of society. (2 stars) ( )

I somehow missed reading this book back when i was a teenager. In fact, i had never heard of it until recently. But i will definitely be recommending it to my daughter - and any other teenaged girls. Or any other grown-up girls who can appreciate coming-of-age-type books. ( )

last read (paperback) in highschool ( )

Category: Classic with a Place in the Title (Back to the Classics Reading Challenge 2020)

There is a lot of hype about this book, and I just don't get it. I mean, I get why this has a place as a classic, being as it is a slice of realism. It is semi-autobiographical, about an impoverished Irish-German family living in Brooklyn during the early 1900s. I just couldn't get into it. The pace was too slow. It was like it was in real time. There were several pages dedicated to shopping at candy stores, butchers, etc. Every mundane detail about purchasing a pickle was laid out. My eyes started glazing over. There are also a lot of things that just don't make sense about the characters. For example, they are Catholic, and the grandmother is afraid that if she doesn't bless the house that demons could be there if Protestants lived there before, but then she tells her daughter to read the Protestant Bible to her children because it's better than the Catholic Bible. I had some other issues with this book as well, but I'll say that the one good thing about this book is that Francie, the main character, is able to experience joy, and see the good in things even after some of the terrible things she's been through, and witnessed. ( )

Good gravy this book took me FOREVER to read. It has held me up with reading anything else because I just knew I'd never pick it up again if I did. I swear if I commit publicly to reading a book I never read it but this time I promised myself I would. I did. It just took forever.
The book is a slice of life book. I don't mind that style in a short story or novela but a full book just seemed a bit much to me. I was waiting for a point. Either I didn't see it or it wasn't there. I liked the characters well enough but I'm not sure I loved any of them or even hated any of them. They just were. ( )

One of my favorites of all time! Love how it evokes the early 1900s, and I love the strength and determination of the main characters. ( )

Ah, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. A classic! I don't know why it took me sooooo long to actually read this classic, on the *80th* anniversary of its first publication. Of course I knew of this book; maybe it was the title which put me off when I was younger.

I LOVED it: historical fiction, NYC in the early 1900's, family drama/relationships, immigrant neighborhoods, spunky kids, colorful characters, food.
It reminded me of one of my most beloved children's series growing up, All-of-a-Kind Family by Sydney Taylor.

Now I see that another novel I recently read, The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant gave me shades of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. ( )

A Bridge Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith is a 1943 publication.

This is another book that I’ve long been curious about but never got around to reading. It is a much beloved novel, but with some recent bad experiences with ‘much beloved classics’, I approached this one with some caution.

Thankfully, despite the often-bleak circumstances, I found the book to be an accurate depiction of the time, never flinching from hard themes. Our Francine is a character we root for, hoping her future is more promising.

The love of reading and books plays a big role in Francine’s life, which also gives her a yearning to write. Naturally, this appeals to this voracious reader, as did the family saga, another favorite of mine.

Many, many reviews, doing the book far more justice than I ever could, have been written, so anything I might add has all been said before- and more eloquently, as well.

I will say that I ended up truly loving this novel and can understand why it has appealed to so many people and why it has endured for all these years. For once, a classic novel lived up to its reputation- and then some!!

Overall, if you haven’t read this classic family drama, I hope you’ll squeeze it into your reading schedule someday. You’ll be glad you did!

*Fun fact: I read this book in digital format. This edition has an introduction written by Ann Patchett. Because the novel is rather lengthy, I found the audio version on Hoopla and switched back and forth between both formats. Interestingly, the audio version, recorded many years ago, also came with an introduction by Jacqueline Mitchard. I am glad I was able to enjoy hearing both authors’ comments about this book! ( )

An incredibly poignant story of America told through the eyes of a young impoverished girl living in a Brooklyn tenement building. A piece of literature that captures the hope and desperation in the early twentieth century. ( )

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is a 1943 semi-autobiographical novel written by Betty Smith. The manuscript started as a non-fiction piece titled They Lived in Brooklyn but was reclassified as a novel with the title we now know and became hugely popular from the very first printing.