I absolutely devoured this gem of a book - for less than two hundred pages it’s a brilliant study of a person at a key point in their life.

The central character is Gail Baines and we follow her in the day before, the day of and the day after her daughters wedding. It starts with her losing her job, then her ex-husband comes to stay with her unexpectedly and then she finds out that her daughters husband-to-be has been keeping a secret.

Lots happens but also not very much - it’s a brilliant study of the small decisions we make every day and the choices that cause us to think them over and over. Gail was quite a lonely character and she would be really easy to dislike but you see how much she really cares and how much she worries about what others think of her.

I loved the dynamic between her and her ex-husband and how she really struggled comparing herself to her daughter’s new mother-in-law who seemed to be confident in everything she did.

It was beautifully written and really easy to read - yet another book that shows what a talented writer Anne Tyler is.

Three Days in June by Anne Tyler
This is a novella but though small it is perfectly formed. As always with Anne Tyler we are introduced to quirky characters and their innermost thoughts and motivations. This story deals with Gail, a 61 year old assistant principal. Her daughter is getting married and prior to the wedding she has an encounter with her principal where she states that she lacks people skills. Gail walks out of the school determined not to return.
She feels excluded from the preparations for the wedding and then her ex-husband comes to stay for the wedding at her house. Gradually we discover what caused the break up in the marriage and also her fears for her daughter in her marriage.
The characters leap off the page and you feel that you have spent time in their company by the end of the novella. There is a touching scene where the ex-husband buys a suit for the wedding helped by Gail and his daughter. In Anne Tyler’s hands the mundane becomes something memorable. A funny, quirky and heartfelt book. I will be recommending it at my various book groups. Thanks to the author, the publishers and Net Galley for the opportunity to read the book in return for an honest review.

I'll read anything Anne Tyler writes, so this felt like slipping into a warm bath. She has a remarkably eye for the tiny details that make up a whole life, and for creating characters who are so certain of their beliefs that the entire narrative bends around them. This was a lovely, bitesized story, told succinctly over three days. It's less expansive than her other works, so probably not that one I'd read first, but lovely all the same.

Three Days In June
By Anne Tyler

Anne Tyler is such a reliable author. Her characters contain multitudes and their drama always appears low stake on the surface but are roiling with foreshadowing of consequences that we interpret through her perfectly formed shorthand of gesture, glance or remark.

Having binged her backlist over recent months I have come to appreciate her witty, razor sharp take on human behaviour, particularly in her older characters, and opening a new book of hers feels rather like sitting down to read a long letter from an old friend.

This new novel is probably my favourite ever of hers. It is short and the humour is evident from the very first page. It is the story of Gail, newly unemployed, her daughter's wedding is tomorrow and her ex husband turns up on her doorstep and foists himself and a borrowed cat upon her for the next three days.

A wedding signifies life changes but moreso for Gail than the for the bride and groom as she reflects on her marriage and divorce, evaluates her identity and her loss of past-self, negotiates a future reality that protects her newfound and hard won self agency, all while considering the possible advances of an old flame and trying not to resent her irritation at the invasion of her privacy by her imperious ex.

I love Gail, I love her growth and determination. This is a warm hug of a book with a very satisfying ending.

Publication date: 13th February 2025
Thanks to ##Netgalley and #randomhouseuk for providing an eGalley in return for an honest review

You know when you just love a book with your bones? I had that with this book. I love Anne Tyler.

I haven’t read everything she’s written but I think I own everything she’s written and have loved what I have read. She makes the ordinary extraordinary, she makes the banal sublime, she writes with humour, heart and soul and her writing speaks to me on a level that I don’t often experience.

Three Days in June is her latest work. It’s out next week and it’s a short novel set over the course of, you guessed it, three days in June, when Gail Baines’ daughter Debbie is about to marry.

Things aren’t going well for Gail, she may have just lost her job, her ex-husband has turned up on her doorstep with a cat and Debbie’s husband-to-be has been keeping a secret.

The characters are unlikeable and endearing in equal measure, and the story unfolds gently and with humour, reaching a satisfying conclusion. I loved it and I feel like I could happily just read Anne Tyler books from this point on and be content. 5/5 ⭐️

Thank you so much @penguinbooksireland for the #gifted advance copy and @netgalley for the eARC. Three Days in June will be published next week, 13 February 2025.

Three Days in June is the most delightful novella - spikey and satisfying. Gail Baines, probably in her sixties, is being passed over for a promotion in her teaching job, not only because her communication skills are lacking. She’s prickly and acerbic, and initially a bit hard to like. I immediately thought of Olive Kitteridge - Gail and Olive would have a lot in common!

The book covers her daughter Debbie’s wedding - the day before, the big day, and the day after. The scale is small, with everything happening close by, but the themes are bigger - Gail reflects on familial love and loyalty, fidelity, and how hard it is to hold your tongue, but not hold your ideas too close. Over the three days there is reflections and secrets, a rescue cat, and a reckoning for a marriage that ended years before. Is it a romance? That’s for the reader to find out 😉

Such a gorgeous and tender little novel - I absolutely recommend if you love good writing, and understatement.

Thank you Anne Tyler, Random House UK and NetGalley for the ARC. Opinions are my own.

The day before her daughter's wedding Gail's ex husband Max suddenly appears asking whether he can stay there, rather than with their daughter. He has brought along a cat and apparently their daughter's husband to be is allergic.
This is a slow paced take on modern family life, with exes being involved in their children's weddings. Neither Gail or Max are perfect, but they can get along reasonably well. There is a last minute hiccup which may derail the wedding, which adds to the tension, plus some old secrets revealed. I don't want to say to much in this review, however the book did grow on me and it is well worth a read.
I received an advance copy of this book from the publisher through Netgalley, however this did not influence my review of the book.

A short story about Gail who is due to attend her daughter Debbie's wedding the next day - however she unexpectedly loses her job and then her ex-husband appears.

This is a book of how your happy ever after can change, no matter what age you are.

I just didn't really like any of the characters so didn't really engage with this one. Not for me I'm afraid. Thankfully it was a very short read.

My thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book.

Three Days in June is my first Anne Tyler read, much to my surprise. I delved into this curious to navigate my first taste of this prolific author. I came out of this hungry for more Anne Tyler - in true gateway drug fashion - and yet satisfied with the way the story of Gail Baines ended.

Do not be fooled by the short length of this novel; it packs a punch. Gail's daughter's wedding weekend in the present time offers the framework for a reflective journey through the protagonist's past: her own wedding and marriage, her career, her experience of motherhood, her eventual divorce, and ultimately her later-in-life second chance at life, love and everything else. Each of the three wedding days (the day before, the actual wedding day and the Sunday after) takes up an almost perfect third of the book, providing a very balanced read and "self analysis". Tyler's literary voice is clear, concise, observational and just detailed enough to provide the information required, no room left for unnecessary detours or characters. The crystal clear honesty she lends to Gail's stream of thoughts is humanising and touching.

Through Gail's recollections and her judgment of her own past and present actions, Tyler offers us an antiheroine whose one big error during her marriage, when her daughter was still a child, seems to put an end to any progression in life. She no longer pursues anything dreamworthy, taking root in her position as the immutable outsider. Not invited to her daughter's pre-wedding spa day, not involved in the wedding planning, not in a romantic relationship, no pets, driving her old Corolla and covering the holes in her living room furniture with doilies. It is her daughter's wedding and the unexpected twists and turns of the weekend that will provide her with an opportunity for analysis and, finally, movement.

I particularly enjoyed Tyler's limited but perfect use of pathetic fallacy (the roadwork that is being tended to by repairmen and that brings to the car at a full stop during a key moment of the novel still sits with me) as well as her use of the senior (female, of course) rescue cat as a mirror for Gail's journey to acceptance, self-love and eventual moving forward. The underlying theme of one's image of perfection, flawless and deserving of being put on a pedestal, and the terrible consequences when one fails to live up to this is haunting and oh-so relatable.

"Anger feels so much better than sadness. Cleaner, somehow, and more definite. But then when the anger fades, the sadness comes right back the same as ever."

* Many thanks to NetGalley & Random House UK, Vintage for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review. *

I think this book must be novella length as it didn't take me very long to read. We have a mismatched couple, a daughter who seems inexplicably unlike either of them, routines, difficulty dealing with people, all classic Tyler characters, and it's set in Baltimore, but it's certainly not Tyler-by-numbers and I think represents a maintenance of the return to form I enjoyed in my reading of "French Braid".

The book does indeed extend over three days in June: the days around divorced parents' Gail and Max's daughter Debbie's wedding day. So we have rehearsal day, the wedding day and the day after, each with its worries and issues. Some of them are common - Debbie is marrying into quite a different kind of family, with formal, well-dressed in-laws and a capable mother-in-law who knows how to organise things "properly" and there's a sibling falling-out - some specific - Gail has a difficult interaction with her boss at the school she works at and walks out, Debbie finds out her groom has a secret (or has he?), and one of the in-laws turns out to be a face from Gail's past. The past is revisited here and there, and we find out how Gail and Max's marriage broke up.

But there are bigger things going on than just a wedding story, as usual: is it better to be with someone just like you or different; how on earth do children come out so different from their parents; is it better to muddle through or be seemingly perfect; is it better to be quieter or louder? Oh, and there's a beautifully drawn cat who, thankfully (you never quite know with Tyler) makes it through fine.

A lovely read I'll be buying in paperback and re-reading in time.

Blog review: https://librofulltime.wordpress.com/2025/02/05/book-review-anne-tyler-three-days-in-june/

Gail Baines is ready to be mother of the bride but the day before The Big Day, she is found unemployed (the reasons why will be explained). Couple this with her ex-husband’s arrival – an ex spouse who does not possess a suit for the aforementioned nuptials – and a soon-to-be bride who is blushing with a secret and not in the flush of matrimony, and Gail’s got quite a lot to deal with.
Anne’s writing will make readers think what is the true definition of ‘happy’ and whether relationship learning can occur between generations.

The first Anne Tyler book I have read and at less than 200 pages some would describe it as a novella. You can see why the writing of Anne Tyler has won many awards. Many authors would have dragged this story out to double the page length with endless unnecessary padding so I applaud the simple well executed. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the chance to ARC this book.

I was thrilled to receive an eARC of "Three Days in June" by Anne Tyler, as I adore her writing style. She has a unique way of introducing us to the lives of ordinary Baltimore people in the most extraordinary manner. Her talent for infusing warmth, humour, depth, and an insight into the human experience makes her books a joy to read. This novella was no different, set over three days but reflecting on the lifetimes of the main characters.

Our protagonist in "Three Days in June" is Gail Baines, a socially awkward 61-year-old woman whose only daughter, Debbie, is getting married.

Gail arrives at work the day before the wedding, only to discover she's been passed over for promotion to principal at a private girls' school due to her lack of people skills. A comment cited was, “Good God, Mrs. Morris, surely you realize your daughter doesn’t have the slightest chance of getting into Princeton.” I couldn't help but laugh at this as a reader 🤣.

She storms out, only to find her semi-estranged ex-husband, Max, arriving to stay at her house for the wedding festivities with a foster cat he hopes she will adopt.

Can her day get worse? Well, bad luck comes in threes, and daughter Debbie shares a secret about groom Kenneth that her parents disagree on how to handle.

All these events send Gail on a voyage of self-reflection: how she met Max, their marriage, what went wrong, and questioning what she should do with her life moving forward. Should she return to classroom teaching, which she enjoyed so much?

I loved this little novella. It's just another perfect slice of ordinary Baltimore lives with flawed main characters. Our couple, Gail and Max, both have their quirks but seem to be a perfect match for each other. Gail, an outspoken worrier, is paired against the chilled-out and laid-back Max. I must say, Max always had the right answer to all of Gail's second-guessing and catastrophising. And yes, we all loved the inclusion of a cat 😻.

I read this book in two sittings and may have shed a little tear at the end of this perfect novella. It's a balm for the soul, which is what we all need these days. This book would make a perfect Valentine's or Galentine's gift for the book lover in your life 💕.

Humorous take on family live, love, children, divorce. An ordinary situation, three a bit out of the ordinary days, a lot packed in a short book.

I’m not very familiar with the Anne Tyler’s books but this novella was well written as I would expect. For me, it never really got going. Despite being the days around the wedding of the only daughter of divorced parents there didn’t seem to be much emotion from any of the characters. Slightly tedious but short enough to read in an afternoon.

A quick read detailing the course of a weekend in which the wedding of a grown up forces her divorced parents to spend time together and reflect.
It’s well done, very cleverly structured and well observed, but for some reason I can’t say I loved this one.

Anne Tyler masterfully sets up this story in the opening pages and follows through with a sublimely enjoyable story. Her writing style is so relaxed and her characters are magnificent.
Over the Three Days in June, Gail faces a career challenge, her daughter's wedding and a few other surprises and dilemmas.

I enjoyed this so much that I didn't want it to end.

I'm not really familiar with Tyler's work, having only read A Spool of Blue Thread, but this short story was enjoyable despite the narrator not being particularly likeable. She's a bit selfish and opinionated and I didn't warm to her a great deal.

It's set over 3 days, including her daughter's wedding, during which she spends time with her ex-husband, Max, and her internal monologue reflecting on their lives to date.

Perfect for those who have a quiet weekend planned and want to sit and read all afternoon, I read it in one sitting

Three Days in June offers a quietly compelling glimpse into the lives of a family, unfolding pieces of their story over the course of three days.

What struck me most was how well the characters were developed, despite the book's brevity. They felt real and their interactions truly drove the narrative.

This isn't a story packed with high drama, but that's its strength. It captures the subtle shifts and undulations of ordinary life, the everyday stresses and anxieties that we all experience. It's relatable and, in its own way, deeply engaging.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review.