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180th out of 1,227 books
—
3,012 voters
Ladder of Years
by
Anne Tyler
Married with three almost-grown children, Delia Grinstead vanishes from the family's beach house without a trace--and apparently without a reason. But for Delia, "walking away from it all" is an impulse that will lead her into a new, exciting and unimagined life.
Mass Market Paperback, 416 pages
Published
March 30th 1997
by Ivy Books
(first published 1995)
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I did not relate well to the main character, a woman who married directly out of high school who lived in the same house her entire life and regretted never having set out on her own at any point in her life. So, I dragged through the plot, which sent the main character to start an anonymous life in a new town and abandoning her children, to find something interesting (because I read Tyler's When We Were Grownups and I remember liking it, so I thought that there must be a pearl in this book, too...more
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Why I Quit Reading Anne Tyler
Anne Tyler has been around a long time and when her books first came out I read them religiously, but I finally lost interest after "Accidental Tourist." "Ladder of Years" reminded me of why.
When Tyler first started publishing in 1964, there was something fresh and unusual about her style. She didn't judge her characters; didn't seem to be using them to symbolize anything. She simply seemed to like her characters, there was affection for them on the page. At the time...more
Anne Tyler has been around a long time and when her books first came out I read them religiously, but I finally lost interest after "Accidental Tourist." "Ladder of Years" reminded me of why.
When Tyler first started publishing in 1964, there was something fresh and unusual about her style. She didn't judge her characters; didn't seem to be using them to symbolize anything. She simply seemed to like her characters, there was affection for them on the page. At the time...more
2 likes · like · see review
Anne Tyler is my go-to author for easy, enjoyable fiction. I don't do chick lit or romance novels, so Anne Tyler is my vacation reading. (Side note: About 8 years ago, I decided I could make my fortune writing romance novels. Easy, right? My first step was to familiarize myself with the genre, so I hopped on down to B&N and bought myself a Danielle Steel book. Good grief. It was painful, even with the semi-steamy sex scenes. I made it about a third of the way through before chucking the book...more
6 likes · like · see review
I've had this book for over ten years and just now have gotten around to reading it. It's been a long time since I've read Anne Tyler, and I thoroughly enjoyed Ladder of Years. I couldn't put it down. I hope women today go into marriage with a little more sense and self-assurance than in the day of our protagonist, Delia, but I think there is still a lot we can learn from this story. Delia, without a conscious thought, deconstructs her life and begins it again, trying to rebuild it with a kind o...more
I believe I read this book right before Jesse and I got married. It was a long time ago.
I got it as a book club selection and fell in love instantly. There is something romantic about just quietly walking off one day, leaving it all behind to start anew. How would you get along without your comfortable life and surroundings? Could you do it on your own?
Would you go back?
Wow, I seem to like kidnappings and runaway stories. Hmmm do I have abandonment issues?
I read this book at least once a year. I...more
I got it as a book club selection and fell in love instantly. There is something romantic about just quietly walking off one day, leaving it all behind to start anew. How would you get along without your comfortable life and surroundings? Could you do it on your own?
Would you go back?
Wow, I seem to like kidnappings and runaway stories. Hmmm do I have abandonment issues?
I read this book at least once a year. I...more
Apr 06, 2013
Mirrani
rated it
2 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
finished-and-reviewed
One of the lines near the end of the book reads, "It was ridiculous of her to feel so wounded." These few words are basically your entire plot, but the idea of the book wasn't what bothered me, and the flighty, unthinking characters weren't a hindrance to my reading. What stopped me from desperately clinging to this book in an effort to consume the whole thing at once was, in fact, the whole thing itself. The writing is mediocre, the characters are annoying and the plot is a good concept but har...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
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I'd rather give a 3 1/2. first Anne Tyler book I've read. It was actually pretty frustrating. I know some authors prefer you figure things out on your own, but I think there was a bit too much to do that. Also the outdated attitudes about women working, their abilities, etc, was really distasteful. Amazing how far we have come in just a few decades!
Interesting also in that this group- Marylander, Baltimorans are not people I am familiar with except through shows like Homicide, so they were quit...more
Interesting also in that this group- Marylander, Baltimorans are not people I am familiar with except through shows like Homicide, so they were quit...more
Jan 10, 2013
Kathleen Thomas
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
anyone who likes to get lost in someone elses world
though many people that I told about this book didn't like it as much as I did. I still reccomend it to friends. it is a story about Delia Grinstead who is 40, is a runaway wife. It was interesting that neither the husband nor children could remeber what she was wearing ot could really descibe her to the police. Delia's impulse to escape her disapproving physician husband and three surly children turns into an adventure that sweeps her from her staid Baltimore orbit into a new existence as Ms. G...more
Dec 29, 2012
Mary
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Anyone who likes contemporary fiction
Recommended to Mary by:
Library Book Sale
"Baltimore Woman Disappears During Family Vacation" declares the newspaper headline. Forty-year-old Cordelia Grinstead is last seen strolling along a Delaware beach, wearing nothing more than a bathing suit and carrying a beach tote with five hundred dollars tucked inside. To her husband, Sam and three almost-grown children, she has vanished without trace or reason. However, for Delia, who feels like a tiny gnat buzzing around the edge of her own family, "walking away from it all" is not a preme...more
I think I might have something different to say about this book 10-20 years from now.
I am a big fan of Anne Tyler's writing. Her characters are endearingly flawed and this protagonist is no exception. I don't have much good or bad to say about this book. I wish it had ended differently, but this is why I am saying that I might feel differently in 10 years. The resolution was expected. The character did the right thing, but just because a person's absence causes necessary changes, doesn't mean i...more
I am a big fan of Anne Tyler's writing. Her characters are endearingly flawed and this protagonist is no exception. I don't have much good or bad to say about this book. I wish it had ended differently, but this is why I am saying that I might feel differently in 10 years. The resolution was expected. The character did the right thing, but just because a person's absence causes necessary changes, doesn't mean i...more
This is a book I reread often. The premise is simple: Delia Grinstead, a vaguely unhappy forty-year-old homemaker, runs away from home without any conscious intention of doing so. The tone is humorous, even upbeat, but it's impossible to lose sight of the fact that she abandons her family. Every step of her journey is an accident, a stumble; but she allows each step to carry her away. Is she forgivable? After at least a dozen readings, I still can't answer that.
I do know that the writing here i...more
I do know that the writing here i...more
This is an extremely insightful novel about the nuances of
eccentricity and the universal aspects of family. It is an
interesting book but the characters are mostly unlikeable.
The story begins with Delia, a frustrated wife and burnt out
mother of adolescents taking a walk on the beach during a
family vacation. She keeps walking and decides not to return.
How she forges a new identity for herself and leaves her fami-
ly behind is the core of this book. What parts of her are
new and what parts of her doe...more
eccentricity and the universal aspects of family. It is an
interesting book but the characters are mostly unlikeable.
The story begins with Delia, a frustrated wife and burnt out
mother of adolescents taking a walk on the beach during a
family vacation. She keeps walking and decides not to return.
How she forges a new identity for herself and leaves her fami-
ly behind is the core of this book. What parts of her are
new and what parts of her doe...more
Other reviewers have encapsulated the plot, so won't go into detail about it. Basically, it's the story of what happens to a woman when one day she just decides to walk away from her life, and what she finds.
I did enjoy this book; there were times, in fact, where I couldn't put it down. The beginning was slow, and a tad out of place - the main character, Delia, has an affair that never really goes anywhere. I suppose it's the impetus for her moving, but it still seems like that part of the book...more
I did enjoy this book; there were times, in fact, where I couldn't put it down. The beginning was slow, and a tad out of place - the main character, Delia, has an affair that never really goes anywhere. I suppose it's the impetus for her moving, but it still seems like that part of the book...more
Really identified with this one (secretly).
At 40, Delia Grinstead seems more likely to have an attack of anxiety, or of whimsy, than to become a runaway wife. Yet, in Tyler's 13th beguiling novel, Delia's impulse to escape her disapproving physician husband and three surly children turns into an adventure that sweeps her from her staid Baltimore orbit into a new existence as Ms. Grinstead, spinster, in the Delaware community of Bay Borough. It's the unexamined life that's Delia's problem, and wh...more
At 40, Delia Grinstead seems more likely to have an attack of anxiety, or of whimsy, than to become a runaway wife. Yet, in Tyler's 13th beguiling novel, Delia's impulse to escape her disapproving physician husband and three surly children turns into an adventure that sweeps her from her staid Baltimore orbit into a new existence as Ms. Grinstead, spinster, in the Delaware community of Bay Borough. It's the unexamined life that's Delia's problem, and wh...more
The author has a natural writing style and just pulls you into the story. At the start of this story I totally understood Delia, I couldn't really blame her for leaving.
With that being said, by the middle of the book I was screaming in my head, "They are your children, no matter what, they are your children! You have to go back to them. No matter how old they are, they are your children." I could understand why she wasn't responding to her husband, he should have asked her to come home. Honestly...more
With that being said, by the middle of the book I was screaming in my head, "They are your children, no matter what, they are your children! You have to go back to them. No matter how old they are, they are your children." I could understand why she wasn't responding to her husband, he should have asked her to come home. Honestly...more
1 like · like · see review
I've always been delighted that Anne Tyler's novels are always a lot less fluffy than they seem, given the plot synopses on the back of my paperbacks.
The truth is, Tyler better captures more than almost any other author the inner lives of regular folks. I was surprised to find myself and constantly eager to find out what would happen to the protagonist, Delia, after she walks out on her family.
Delia's motivations are in no way cardboard, as they might be in the hands of a lesser novelist. They a...more
The truth is, Tyler better captures more than almost any other author the inner lives of regular folks. I was surprised to find myself and constantly eager to find out what would happen to the protagonist, Delia, after she walks out on her family.
Delia's motivations are in no way cardboard, as they might be in the hands of a lesser novelist. They a...more
I will show my ignorance with this review. At first, I thought Anne Tyler was riffing on King Lear with the 3 daughters (one named Cordelia) and the tension between the 3 girls over the family pile. So, I was expecting some kind of a pattern there and if there is one I wasn't able to discern it. This author's characters are always so real you feel like you'll bump into them at the grocery market - she's just so gifted in that way. And, she makes ordinary family issues so interesting - she examin...more
Very readable - but crazy story (especially the ending). This story encouraged me to follow the real-life story of a woman who "disappeared" from a Beth Moore conference in Texarkana, LA. I suspected that she had walked away from her family, much as the main character in Ladder of Years. Sure enough, about 5 months later, she surfaced in New York.
1 like · like · see review
It's been a long time since I read this book, but unfortunately it was my first Anne Tyler book and I did not care for it.
As a writer, I don't have a problem with almost any theme, because for me, it's how the story is told. Not everyone is going to like every book, no matter how well written, no matter how much mass appeal. Such is virtually impossible.
In this book, the main character, Delia Grinstead, decides to walk away from her life as she knows it. Delia is on the beach with her family an...more
As a writer, I don't have a problem with almost any theme, because for me, it's how the story is told. Not everyone is going to like every book, no matter how well written, no matter how much mass appeal. Such is virtually impossible.
In this book, the main character, Delia Grinstead, decides to walk away from her life as she knows it. Delia is on the beach with her family an...more
3 likes · like · see review
The heroine, Delia Grinstead, is an adolescent, except that she is a married woman with three children in the teens and twenties. Her insecurity about herself and the impulsive (and heartless) actions she takes, make the most sense if we think about her as young and incapable of using words to describe how she feels or what she wants. There are other important characters in the book who are also adolescents, and I suspect we are supposed to compare Delia's behavior with theirs.
At a key point in...more
At a key point in...more
Anne Tyler seems to have taken the title of her book “Ladder of Years,” from the following conversation relayed by Nat, a somewhat elderly character in the book who lives at Senior City. “See, I’ve always pictured life as one of those ladders you find on playground sliding boards - a sort of ladder of years where you climb higher and higher, and then, oops!, you fall over the edge and others move up behind you.”
Delia is the main character in the book, a 40 year old housewife married to a Doctor...more
Delia is the main character in the book, a 40 year old housewife married to a Doctor...more
The idea of this book - a woman who just walks away from her family during at beach vacation - was very intriguing. Who hasn't thought about getting in a car and driving away at some point? But the direction of the story meanders and I despised the ending. It seemed like Tyler just got tired of writing it and didn't know how to resolve the plot. There was no feeling of some essential insight gained by the main character. This critical flash of insight, a culmination of all that's gone before, is...more
5 likes · like · see review
I stopped reading Anne Tyler some years ago. I recently picked up this novel and thought I'd give her another try. "Ladder of Years" made me remember why I stopped reading Tyler. Her women characters are singularly unlikeable. This novel features a protagonist who walks out on her family, starts a new life elsewhere, and seemed not to learn a thing in the process. It also features her sisters: one is butchily unattractive and new agey, while the other cares only about her own needs and anything...more
This book was a bookcrossing wild catch, found out in the open at Hatton Station near Warwick, so I was lucky to find it before the weather took it's toll.
It was total karma as the local bookcrossers then decided to make it our bookcrossing meet up bookclub book - which we will discuss at the next meeting.
This book really struck a chord with me. The way a Mum can be so invisible that when she goes missing they can't even remeber her eye and hair colour, let alone what she was wearing. ( I know t...more
It was total karma as the local bookcrossers then decided to make it our bookcrossing meet up bookclub book - which we will discuss at the next meeting.
This book really struck a chord with me. The way a Mum can be so invisible that when she goes missing they can't even remeber her eye and hair colour, let alone what she was wearing. ( I know t...more
Oh, there's so much to say about this book. It's the third Anne Tyler I've read, and I have to say my least favorite. There's three runaway wives, an almost runaway bride, and a runaway husband.
The primary runaway is Delia Grinstead. After a lifetime of perceived small insults and slights, she just walks away from her family during a beach vacation. She gets a ride to a small town, thinking she's just going to start over. She appears to have an active fantasy life in imagining what this new life...more
The primary runaway is Delia Grinstead. After a lifetime of perceived small insults and slights, she just walks away from her family during a beach vacation. She gets a ride to a small town, thinking she's just going to start over. She appears to have an active fantasy life in imagining what this new life...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
Sep 05, 2010
Kristine
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
fiction,
personal-choice
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
This was good vacation/beach/ lite book.I don't have much more to say to about it. I could vent some negative frustrations but why bother? If you go into it thinking you will be blown away by character development, beautiful prose and new and interesting ideas you will be disappointed. But if you want some lite reading that is readable rather than empty-headed fluff, then this fits the bill. The one thing that I didnt like was the charcaters' use of grammar. I felt that towards the end of the bo...more
I enjoy Anne Tyler's writing, which is thoughtful and nuanced, and remarkably grounded, as well as being easy to read. When I read the back of this book, though, I was worried that I wasn't going to enjoy this book as much as I wanted to, because it was clearly about a woman who left her family.
For me, the impulse to leave is relatable, but actually doing so is unthinkable, and I was pretty sure I wouldn't enjoy thinking about it for the length of a book. So I was surprised by how much I enjoye...more
For me, the impulse to leave is relatable, but actually doing so is unthinkable, and I was pretty sure I wouldn't enjoy thinking about it for the length of a book. So I was surprised by how much I enjoye...more
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| worth reading | 2 | 12 | 13 nov. 15:52 | |
| Ladder of Years | 1 | 39 | 08 fév. 10:31 |
Anne Tyler was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1941 and grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina. She graduated at nineteen from Duke University and went on to do graduate work in Russian studies at Columbia University.
The Beginner's Goodbye
is Anne Tyler's nineteenth novel; her eleventh,
Breathing Lessons
, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1988. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and...more
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“She saw herself riding in the passenger seat, Sam behind the wheel. Like two of those little peg people in a toy car. Husband peg, wife peg, side by side. Facing the road and not looking at each other; for why would they need to, really, having gone beyond the visible surface long ago. No hope of admiring gazes anymore, no chance of unremitting adoration. Nothing left to show but their plain, true, homely, interior selves, which were actually much richer anyhow.”
—
5 people liked it
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