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94th out of 325 books
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Joy in the Morning
by
Betty Smith
In Brooklyn, New York, in 1927, Carl Brown and Annie McGairy meet and fall in love. Though only eighteen, Annie travels alone to the Midwestern university where Carl is studying law to marry him. Little did they know how difficult their first year of marriage would be, in a faraway place with little money and few friends. But Carl and Annie come to realize that the struggl
...morePaperback, 296 pages
Published
July 1st 2000
by Harper Perennial
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My mom passed this along to me a few years ago, and I finally picked it up this week after reading something about it on someone's blog. It's hard not to love Betty Smith after "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn," so I was optimistic about this one. It was very similar in style and pace to the aforementioned... unsentimental but leaving you cheering for the characters, hoping for them. I really wanted their lives to get easier, really wanted them to keep loving each other and not give up in...more
This book is endearing from the very first page. I read it in middle school, after a friend (Leah!) recommended it to me, and immediately fell in love with Annie (it helps that we share the same name!). I had already read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, but this wasn't anything like I expected. Annie is completely charming, and will sweep you off your feet with her wholesome and winsome ways. The book follows Annie and Carl's lives as a poor but earnest newlywed couple in the 1920's. Their dialogue is...more
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This is one of the loveliest, sweetest books I've ever read. It takes a mental adjustment to appreciate the time period, so don't get thrown off by the relationship in the early pages of the book. The reward of watching the young couple's first year of marriage unfold makes the early awkwardness, and, frankly, shocking first bits worth it and actually understandable. This is not a plot driven book, but really a sweet story of young love at a "middle western" college.
I love Betty Smith. If I could be a writer, I would hope my work would be similar to her style. She grew up in Brooklyn, and is most known for her book "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn," which still ranks as my #1 book.
I appreciate the way Betty Smith can make you attach to characters. You feel like you are peeking into their windows and watching it first hand.
This story is based around a young, married couple in the 1920s, trying desperately to stay afloat. It i...more
I appreciate the way Betty Smith can make you attach to characters. You feel like you are peeking into their windows and watching it first hand.
This story is based around a young, married couple in the 1920s, trying desperately to stay afloat. It i...more
If I could, this would be 3.5 stars. I felt like I was falling in love again for the first time with my husband. This story was a sweet love story and really had me reminising about courtship and being a newlywed. Anyone who has been poor and struggling as a newlywed, but so in love that it doesn't matter, will love relating to this book. It is an easy read and lighthearted.
Eighteen-year-old Annie leaves Brooklyn to join her longtime boyfriend Carl in the Midwest, where he’s attending law school. The two get married against their families’ wishes. This book takes them through their first year of marriage and the birth of their first child.
While Annie is not exactly the same person as Francie Nolan from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, she might as well be. Her name and ethnicity are changed, and her situation is slightly different, but this book is pretty much a...more
While Annie is not exactly the same person as Francie Nolan from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, she might as well be. Her name and ethnicity are changed, and her situation is slightly different, but this book is pretty much a...more
After reading and finishing "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn," also by Betty Smith, I wanted to read something else that she wrote, so I picked up "Joy in the Morning," which she wrote 20 years later. It held my interest and was a quick read. Like "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn," "Joy in the Morning" is a novel with an auto-biographical theme. It provides a fictionalized account of Betty Smith's first year of marriage to a law student attending a mid-western univer...more
This is the second book I have read by Betty Smith, author of my all-time favorite book, A Tree Grows In Brooklyn. While Joy in the Morning lacks some of the depth of A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, it well worth the read. Smith has a way of describing and alluding to the harsh realities of life without losing the hopefulness of her protagonists. Annie of Joy in the Morning and Francie of A Tree Grows In Brooklyn live in poverty, but they strive and struggle to thrive. But this is no improbable rag...more
“Joy in the Morning” by Betty Smith. Harper & Row publishers Inc. New York N.Y.1963
“Joy in the Morning” is a novel for young adults that depicts the struggles of young marriage, especially while pursuing a degree. The plot is centered on the main characters Annie and Carl. Annie is a nonchalant young lady that takes life as it comes, especially marriage. Carl, on the other hand is driven by his future and his goals. He is the more realistic character. He is levelheaded and the roc...more
“Joy in the Morning” is a novel for young adults that depicts the struggles of young marriage, especially while pursuing a degree. The plot is centered on the main characters Annie and Carl. Annie is a nonchalant young lady that takes life as it comes, especially marriage. Carl, on the other hand is driven by his future and his goals. He is the more realistic character. He is levelheaded and the roc...more
A Brooklyn couple marries and heads off to law school. Carl is bright and ambitious and his bride is hardworking and genuine. Through the kindness of a dean she discovers her own gifts even though she is not a student at the university. Annie befriends all that she meets and the reader enjoys many varied characters through her associations and friendships.
Young married life is lean and stressful but love and determination go a long way toward life's successes both interpersonal an...more
Young married life is lean and stressful but love and determination go a long way toward life's successes both interpersonal an...more
This is another great book by Betty Smith. I read it shortly after A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, which might have lessened my enjoyment of it a bit. I wouldn't recommend reading them back-to-back as the style is very similar. This story follows Carl and Annie through young love and marriage. The reader shares in their experiences of moving to a new town, dealing with pregnancy and trying to survive on very little money. The book is very hopeful and uplifting, without being smarmy.
This book opened with a few too many banal chapters, developing the shallow, unlikable characters of Annie and Carl Brown in the first moments and months of their marriage.
I never warmed to the tone of the book. It seemed stilted and so far removed from my own associations with intimacy. However, there came a point when I began to appreciate the story, and even Annie's character. Annie is eighteen, from Brooklyn, uneducated, and alone (aside from a unimpressive husband) on a co...more
I never warmed to the tone of the book. It seemed stilted and so far removed from my own associations with intimacy. However, there came a point when I began to appreciate the story, and even Annie's character. Annie is eighteen, from Brooklyn, uneducated, and alone (aside from a unimpressive husband) on a co...more
Simple, compelling story of a young married couple and their first two married years of joys and trials. The husband is in law school and the wife, though intelligent, didn't graduate from high school and has some inferiority issues because of this, but as she matures and has successes of her own, she gains self confidence. I would rate this book between 3 and 4 stars. The story addresses problems faced by young newly-weds - lack of money, jealousy, miscommunication, shaky self-confidence,...more
I had forgotten how utterly charming this little book is. It's a wonderful story of perseverance and the power of love and imagination, and Annie and Carl are fantastic characters. I've always thought of this book as a bit of a continuation of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn--I mean, not really, because Annie isn't much like Francie, but it's the story of a young girl from Brooklyn, who moves to the Midwest (Francie was going to go to University of Michigan in Ann Arbor at the end of Tree). Annie's ...more
This novel is written by the author of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.
Carl Brown and Annie McGairy meet in Brooklyn, New York, and fall in love. Carl moves to the midwest to attend law school, and in 1927, 18 year old Annie travels there to marry him. The first year is more difficult than they anticipated, living so far away from family and with few friends, but their love sustains them through hardship and poverty.
I really enjoyed this story, it was sweet without being sentime...more
Carl Brown and Annie McGairy meet in Brooklyn, New York, and fall in love. Carl moves to the midwest to attend law school, and in 1927, 18 year old Annie travels there to marry him. The first year is more difficult than they anticipated, living so far away from family and with few friends, but their love sustains them through hardship and poverty.
I really enjoyed this story, it was sweet without being sentime...more
This is a beautiful story of a young couple in their first year of marriage, set in the 1930's (I think--I'm doing this from memory). I don't remember too much, but just that I really understood the characters, and it was an uplifting book about the ups and downs of married life. I enjoyed it immenseley.
Of course, not as good as A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, but an excellent read nonetheless. I like that the author writes from her own life story and turns it into a novel. The author grew up in Brooklyn herself, and then moved to Michigan to marry a law student, just like her heroine in Joy in the Morning. In a word, this book is charming. It's set in 1927, on the wedding day of eighteen-year-old Annie and twenty-year-old Carl. They are completely in love, and marry despite the disapproval of their ...more
I started this book while I was on a trip to Turkey and Greece. I really liked it but I felt like I should read something edgier, so I put this aside. I picked it back up for a readathon and finished in a couple of hours. This book is by the Betty Smith of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. This story, set in the 1920s, features Annie and Carl, who are from Brooklyn but are living in the Midwest for Carl to go to law school. Annie has little education, but loves being on a college campus. She finds...more
I read this years ago and enjoyed it, but picked it up again after a friend commented that she always read it as a sequel, of sorts, to A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I can see the comparisons (and it helps that both books are semi-autobiographical), but I don't see enough similarities to say we're following Francie--or even her little sister Annie.
Still, you can't help but root for the Annie and Carl of this book, despite their hardships and flaws. Somehow they make it all work despi...more
Still, you can't help but root for the Annie and Carl of this book, despite their hardships and flaws. Somehow they make it all work despi...more
What a sweet, honest, and completely endearing book this was! It's the story of a young marriage in its first year, and yes, while there are 'problems', they don't take over like they might in books written today. I think these days we've gotten a little too used to conflict as the catalyst of our plot trajectories. Anyway, what shines through in this portrayal of Carl and Annie's life together is the LOVE they have for each other, and that they always find their way back to, no matter how di...more
Just finished this today - Betty Smith's "sequel" to A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I really like her writing style and her vivacious main character Annie is a very appealing heroine. The book seems to be a thinly veiled autobiography, as did "Brooklyn."
I loved every page of this sweet and honest look at the first year and a half of marriage for young Annie and Carl. It's impossible to not love Annie from the moment she babbles - in her thick Brooklyn accent - to the Town Hall marriage clerk about all the Middle West books she's read. The love between Carl & Annie is true and, yes, uplifting. But Smith never descends into schmaltz or sentimentality.
Because this is such a seemingly simple story, I wavered between giving this 4 or 5...more
Because this is such a seemingly simple story, I wavered between giving this 4 or 5...more
I can always get lost in a Betty Smith book. My first was, of course, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn which is one of her more well-known novels. Joy in the Morning was my second Betty Smith novel. Joy in the Morning is a becoming love story of Annie and Carl in the late 1920's. Carl is an aspiring lawyer and Annie has never had any formal education to boot as she worked most of her life with her mother back home in Brooklyn. Both Annie's and Carl's parents aren't accepting of their marriage.
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Published in 1963. Story set in 1927/1928.
Delightful story about Annie McGairy (18) and Carl Brown (20) who get married against their parents' wishes. They have great trouble keeping their heads above water in this unspecified midwestern university town, where Carl is studying law. Annie, who never had much more education than elementary school, is an aspiring writer and is allowed to audit a few classes. But then Annie gets pregnant and money becomes even more of an issue. Carl holds ...more
Delightful story about Annie McGairy (18) and Carl Brown (20) who get married against their parents' wishes. They have great trouble keeping their heads above water in this unspecified midwestern university town, where Carl is studying law. Annie, who never had much more education than elementary school, is an aspiring writer and is allowed to audit a few classes. But then Annie gets pregnant and money becomes even more of an issue. Carl holds ...more
Since I really liked A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith, I looked forward to her Joy in the Morning, similarly somewhat autobiographical.
The story happens during the year of 1927-1928 in a small Midwestern
college town. It is the story of Annie & Carl Brown's first year of marriage, adjusting to married life, with little money and no support, financial or emotional, from their families while Carl completes his last year of law school, Annie develops her writing skills and they...more
The story happens during the year of 1927-1928 in a small Midwestern
college town. It is the story of Annie & Carl Brown's first year of marriage, adjusting to married life, with little money and no support, financial or emotional, from their families while Carl completes his last year of law school, Annie develops her writing skills and they...more
I adored A Tree Grows in Brooklyn so thought I might like another book by Betty Smith. In the end, I liked it. Certainly, the style of writing is completely different than ATGIB. This felt very retro and specific to the era that it represented--like watching an old black and white movie where everyone calls each other darling and dear and all the problems are wrapped up with spit and polish. There were times it bordered on cheesy, but honestly I think that it was true to the time period it was w...more
I started this book anticipating something as touching and lovely as A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, and it completly met my expectations. Though i thought the book was really good, it wasn't half as magical or heartwarming as her first book. It was different but not as good. I think here Smith trued to show the power of romantic love while in her other book she tried to show love for the whole world. Reading this book though, made me feel like love can do anything, unlike what all divorces and break ...more
I read this book many many years ago. I believe it made me fall in love. I have been looking for this for a while I would like it on my e-reader but I can’t find it, I still have my copy and I want to pass it on but not until I get the e-book.
This story is about true love of two young people, Annie and Carl and their struggles. It is set in Brooklyn, where I was born and raised so I was able to relate.
Just thinking about this book brings a longing to read it again, I guess I know w...more
This story is about true love of two young people, Annie and Carl and their struggles. It is set in Brooklyn, where I was born and raised so I was able to relate.
Just thinking about this book brings a longing to read it again, I guess I know w...more
I loved this book! I have to admit it was a huge change of pace from the stuff I usually read and it was such a sweet and simple story, I could not put it down. The characters, Annie and Carl, are such endearing characters. They are so uncomplicated and unaffected, yet they have their fair share of problems to deal with. The love they have for each other is so sweet and unselfish, I was really swept away into this story of their everyday lives. There really is no complicated plot to follow, ...more
I picked this book up somewhat randomly off the shelf at the library. I have been meaning to read another of the author's books and since it wasn't in stock, I grabbed this one instead. The back cover described it as an "unsentimental love story" which intruiged me. A love story that's not sentimental? I was curious how the author would pull that off, and pull it off she did!
The book basically follows Carl and Annie through their first year of marriage....just their every...more
The book basically follows Carl and Annie through their first year of marriage....just their every...more
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Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Betty Smith (AKA Sophina Elisabeth Wehner): Born- December 15, 1896; Died- January 17, 1972
Born in Brooklyn, New York to German immigrants, she grew up poor in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. These experiences served as the framework to her first novel, A T...more
More about Betty Smith...
Betty Smith (AKA Sophina Elisabeth Wehner): Born- December 15, 1896; Died- January 17, 1972
Born in Brooklyn, New York to German immigrants, she grew up poor in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. These experiences served as the framework to her first novel, A T...more
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