"The Garden Party" is a delightful and enchanting novel that skillfully brings together two distinct families in a rehearsal dinner. Grace Dane Mazur's writing is filled with wit and magic, weaving a captivating tale of miscommunication, secrets, and the transformative power of love.

Got this from NetGalley several years ago but for some reason never read or reviewed. I started reading it last night and had to put it in my DNF pile. I just could not get into it. Maybe it's me, but I was not interested in the families, and had a hard time following what was going on. Thanks Netgalley.

Can I just say how beautiful this cover is? With the title and this cover I imagined a Brothers and Sisters type of outdoor dinner being the backdrop for this story. Beautiful, lush, multiple conversations at once. The premise was the same but the story left me shrugging my shoulders.

Two families come together for dinner on the eve of the wedding of their two children. One family is highly intellectual, the other are Wall Street lawyer types. The dinner highlights all the differences of both families which should have been more interesting than it actually was.

I was actually bored through much of this book. Some of the characters were very interesting but the story spent such a short time on them and consistently refocused on the parents, which were either flighty and self-indulgent or angry and bigoted.

Towards the end of the book, the focus shifts to the children of the party, which was kind of cute but also kind of weird. And the last part of the book, focusing on the elderly grandmother, was like a whole separate book. It felt so odd and out of place that I was very happy when the book was over.

If you like books that feel like long, lazy strolls with no real purpose or ending, this would be a book for you.

Thank you to #NetGalley for providing this book. I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy and all views expressed are only my honest opinion.

This Author is really great. I really loved this book. This tale was highly engrossing and highly recommendable!!

I enjoyed the eccentric characters all brought together around a rehearsal dinner table, and the complexities of merging two very different families, but then the book just suddenly ended. It was as if

The cover of the book caught my attention and the description made me think I would enjoy it. However, I had to force myself to keep turning the pages and enduring the banality of the story. I felt like the story just became so convoluted. And there were just too many characters that I didn't like. It was a total waste of my time.

Though I appreciate NetGalley for providing an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Short review ran in Minneapolis Star Tribune for summer fiction preview in June, and I also highlighted in blog and reviewed on Goodreads. Thought it a magical midsummer dream of a book.

Five stars for the first half of the novel, read it for the beauty of language and word choice. I like that the classic plot was reimagined and seemed very much like a magical play. The large cast of characters not in depth worked for me. The second half fell off the rails as
I really had no patience for Pindar and his ruminations, made the literal minded Barlow’s more sympathetic to me...would have liked an Adam/Liza pov instead. Well worth the time in any case.
Three stars for the second half and not a fan of the ending....I’d be interested to hear from the author what she had in mind for the
denouement.... totally loved the elopement attempts at the rehearsal dinner which made all the side scenarios fall away happily

3.5 Gorgeous cover, beautiful prose. My reactions to the novel though, decidly mixed. When the Cohen son, decides to marry the daughter of the Barlow's, both sides try to understand the attraction. The Cohens are poets, travelers, academics, the Barlows are lawyers, rather stuffy, circumspect. Strangely, the family's will meet for the first time at the rehearsal dinner,can dinner given by the Cohens.

A brilliant setting, a setup for some humorous conversations, circumstances, of which there was plenty. From trying to plan a dinner, taking into account the various food allergies, to the young couple trying to sneak a private ceremony, before the official one. An aging matriarch on one side, a elderly grandfather on the other. Can someone actually be allergic to a color. Believe me, these are some colorful people, and I enjoyed some of this very much.

The problem though was the large cast of characters, floating in and out of scenes, like acts of a play. Never really got to really know any of them, well a few more than others. The book is relatively short in pages, so in s way it felt like it was ending, just as it was beginning. So, basically a humorous story, a comedy of errors if you will, with some wonderful prose, but the situation drives the characters instead of the characters driving the story. Definitely worth reading though, this is an author I think we will see good things from in the future.

ARC from Netgalley.

Imagine if a Wes Anderson movie took place at a wedding rehearsal dinner and you will have "The Garden Party".

Colorful characters with careers like a Babylonian cookbook author, scorpion biologist turned folklore writer, and recently expelled divinity school student are among the 25 guests (don't worry, there's a sitting chart at the beginning of the book) who all come together for a wedding of two people whose families couldn't be anymore different. It is a common story plot, but Mazur's writing and the featured characters make it an interesting character study.

I received this book from Random House in exchange for an honest review.

There are few occasions more awkward then bringing new in-laws together to meet for the first time. For many, this may not occur until days before the wedding but, sometimes, as in The Garden Party, it's the night before, at the rehearsal dinner. Adam and Eliza are getting married and this feels more stressful to them than the wedding itself. Mostly because their families reside in opposite poles on the globe of human nature. His family, the Cohens, are artistic wanderers, who see life as journey where doing is not as important as being, where thinking about doing is a goal. The Barlows are aggressive doers, immediately apparent by the fact that they are all lawyers. ALL. LAWYERS. From her father and mother right down to her three brothers. Only she and her twin brother, Harry, have gone against the family grain-she's studying to be a veterinarian and he's a pastor. They all come together at the Cohen's house for a meal of confusion, humor, intrigue, mishaps, and tenderness.

The Garden Party is a picture in contrasts. Pindar, Adam's father, is a man so gentle he's combed the garden for exactly the right flowers for the table, pairing them up by their traditional meanings to send an unspoken message about love to the guests. Eliza's father, on the other hand, goes so far as to ask Pindar if Adam chose to be a poet because there is something wrong with him. But, rudeness aside, author Grace Dane Mazur isn't interested in simple generalizations about good and bad people. She is gentle in her depiction of all the layers in both families. The Cohens take quirky into territory that is panicky and decidedly odd, just as the Barlows reveal familial bonding in a primal need for organized games.

The novel is a character study, taking place in one afternoon and evening. The only action is the flow between the guests, to which we have front row seats, thanks to Mazur. She shepherds couples together and apart, guides conversations to places they might not have gone to on another night, and lets us revel in the escaping of the families' children to a nearby pond-bringing back memories of being when faced with unutterably dull adult events.

He was glad that they had all has the sense to slide away from the grown-ups, although he liked his aunt Lizzie and the man she was marrying. It was clear, though, that the asparagus would go on forever. He had lost hope of any other food. Loc 2017

It is these kinds of tiny gestures, expressions, and hidden conversations that both contrast and bind together the Barlows and the Cohens. I was especially touched by the two elders in the families, who, despite being in their nineties, provide the humor and a sweet flirtation.

One caveat (and it may just be the advance electronic copy of the book I had), most of the sentences begin with verbs, which can be quite disconcerting when it happens repeatedly. It gives a very choppy, jumpy feel to what is otherwise languid reading. Beyond that, Mazur is beautifully adept at playing with words without letting them take control, making The Garden Party a lovely, tender, and hopeful novel.

I enjoyed this book very much. I found the basic underlying theme of two families getting together for the rehearsal dinner to be an ingenious way to tell a story. The nuances of conversation and the events as they unfold were spellbinding and kept me glued to this book. I received a copy from NetGalley and the publisher and this is my honest opinion.

The cover of “The Garden Party is one of the most beautiful and inviting covers I’ve seen this year. It looks like the setting for a perfect summer dinner party under the stars, but that turns out to be more anticipation than reality. When two very different families meet in an intimate social situation, a wedding rehearsal dinner, navigating those differences proves to be tense, challenging, and surprising. The story focuses primarily on the large and varied group of people at the wedding, with most of the characters providing their own point of view. This allows the reader a glimpse into the past experiences, thoughts, and feelings of the characters, but with so many characters some of them weren’t fully brought to life or explored as deeply as I would have liked. While Mazur helpfully provides a seating chart with brief descriptions of each character, the fact that so many of the characters are heard from in a relatively short book detracted from the overall experience. But that is a relatively minor quibble with this witty, stylish, and vividly written novel.

My review was posted on Goodreads on 7/16/18.

The premise of this book was promising, but I just could not get into it. There was way too much going on with too many different characters. I think that it would have been much better if the author had chosen to write about less characters.

Adam and Eliza are getting married and this is the story of their families, told in the form of discussions at the party celebrating that event. Yes there are a lot of characters and yes they are stereotypes (sorry but they are) but Mazur has written a novel that will have you nodding your head as you recognize the people she's created. The Cohens and the Barlows exist in two different spheres in the same universe but at root they have the same thing in mind- happiness. Thanks to the publisher for the ARC. This would actually make quite a good movie.

Thanks to NetGalley, Random House and Grace Dane Mazur for the opportunity to read and review this book.

This book takes place in the garden of Celia and Pindar Cohen the evening before the wedding of their son, Adam, to Eliza - the rehearsal dinner. It's also the symbolic melding of these two families, who couldn't be more opposite. The Cohen's are a literary and different family - Pindar is writing a cookbook derived from ancient Mesopotamia tablets, Adam is a poet, and his two sisters are somewhat fragile activists. Enter the bride's family - the Barlow's. They are a family of lawyers, except Eliza who is studying to be a veterinarian. Eliza has a twin and 3 older brothers, who come with their wives and children. Then there are the elders - Leah (Pindar's mother) and Nathan (the bride's grandfather).

I loved the cover and the idea of this book and indeed liked much of the book. But it was a bit of a stream of consciousness, poetic style of writing made more difficult by chapters starting in mid-sentence. With a big cast of characters, it took awhile to figure out whose voice you were reading. Definitely a character study rather than plot-driven book.

I was given an advanced reader’s copy in exchange for an honest review.

This was labeled literary fiction but is really meh women’s domestic fiction. Believe the reviews

The Garden Party is a book I really thought I would love. Subdued, full of characters interacting in quirky style while bringing two very diverse families together in a stressful time of life, a wedding. The cover drew me in. The concept is that two families are gathering at a rehearsal dinner of their kids. WASPY lawyer types from Boston and The Cohens, Jewish and a little quirky, meet for the first time at a rehearsal dinner for their marrying children. What could possibly go wrong? Well, even with the quirky sister on the roof, not much happened. I kept waiting. Nothing. I couldn’t relate to any of the characters. About two thirds through the book, I gave up caring about them and skimmed the rest of the book. Not finishing a book isn’t in me. But…..there is always a first time for everything.

The writing was really good though, which is strange for me, not being able to finish the book. There was a feeling of poetry almost. But, too many people, too many descriptions and well, nothing happened.

I want to ask the writer and editor to figure out how to fix this book, as the writing is good and the potential is there. Or maybe it is just me. But, somehow, grab me! Otherwise, I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone as is.
I really wanted to love it. You know…that cover.

My thanks to #NetGalley and Random House for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

I’ll admit I was totally drawn to this book because of the cover. It just seemed so inviting. The concept is that two families are gathering at a rehearsal dinner. The Cohens, Jewish and Bohemian by nature, are hosting the Barlows, stiff upper lip WASP lawyers. “At their first meeting, Stephen Barlow had asked Pindar if there was something wrong with Adam that he had become a poet, implying that poetry was not a calling but a failure of will or a malady of the soul.”

I wasn’t sure what to make of this. This is mostly a series of character studies. And there are some weird characters here. Each is initially given a few pages as back story. You’re given a glimpse into their thoughts. Just like walking into a party where you barely know anyone, you are thrust into this group of unknown and diverse souls. And just like at some parties, I struggled to find someone I could relate to. Thank God for Leah, the only one I liked.

I can’t say I really cared for the writing. It just seemed off, somehow. I wish I could explain it better. Well, part of it might be the number of incomplete sentences. Yes, there’s a poetic feel to it. And in other hands, I might have found the descriptions charming. But it just felt busy, crowded. Too many descriptions, too many thoughts crowded one on top of the other. You not only hear the conversations but the thoughts behind the conversations.

Oh, and if you’re waiting for something exciting to happen, you’ve got a long wait. And even then, it’s so subdued you almost miss it.

My thanks to netgalley and Random House for an advance copy of this novel.

I really wanted to love this book. I enjoyed the premise, but found I could not get through this book. I made it through 50% of this book before giving up.

I would like to thank Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a review copy in exchange for my honest and unbiased opinion of it.