Maisie is a married mother with four children, ages two weeks to eight years. She and her husband Neil are overcome with credit card and house debt and Maisie dreams of the day when she is debt free. The novel offers streams of comments by other parents and well-intended strangers at preschool pick-up, soccer practice, gymnastics, and Catholic church services who offer Maisie advice on being a mother and a woman.

The book reads like a daily devotional with so much advice and commentary on human nature. Readers will be underlining and taking notes, but the novel is also overwhelmed with exclamation points. So many sentences end with exclamation points.

Note: One word of caution: Maisie breastfeeds her two-week old daughter, Esme, in bed and nods off to sleep. Back to Bed is a national infant sleep campaign that encourages parents never to bring their babies into an adult bed to avoid the chances of the baby suffocating. https://safetosleep.nichd.nih.gov/safesleepbasics/risk/reduce

The summary of this book sounded amazing but honestly, I didn't get half way before I gave up. The idea of the story is good, as a mother especially, I was intrigued by the main characters take on motherhood and marriage but I could not get passed the metaphors and writing style of the book. It was hard to distinguish her thoughts vs reality and it was a bit too slow for me to actually grab my attention and keep me interested. While I don't want to give the book too low of a rating because I didn't actually make it all the way through, the system will not allow me to submit my review without adding a rating so I'm going with 2.5 rounded up.

This book was ok , I found that every single thing in the book was sexualized in some way , it was weird. The cover really drew me in though

In the Orchard by Eliza Minot is one book I will never forget about! WoW!

I loved this story, Minot captures the sense of motherhood, family and love.
A wonderful book, beautifully written in lyrical prose.
I found In the Orchard to be moving and engaging.
The characters were my absolute favorite.
I felt the author did an amazing job. Very detailed and descriptive. Which had me hooked and not wanting to put my Kindle down.

A novel about womanhood, modern family, and the interior landscape of maternal life, as seen through the life of a young wife and mother on a single day.

"I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own."

Knopf,
Thank You for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!
I will post my review to my blog, platforms, BookBub, B&N, Kobo and Waterstone closer to pub date.

An interesting novel of the thoughts of Maisie on motherhood, children, and life in general. The musings take place over one day . It is rather a stream of thoughts similar to one’s own thoughts during the day, jumping from one thought to another and rabbit trailing. Memories of her childhood, of conversations with other mothers and events in her children’s lives trail through her mind. Be sure to look for small clues that will help to understand the ending.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

First, thank you to the publisher and author for providing me with a digital copy of this title via Netgalley.

UGH this book! The cover is pretty, the summary sounded tempting. I was excited to be given a copy. But then I started reading... and on the 5th night of reading, I still found myself wondering "what is this book about? What is the story here?" I felt like every night I was starting the book over in a hellish ground hogs day cycle and never getting anywhere. I finally looked paused reading and looked it up in goodreads hoping someone could help me figure out WHAT IS GOING ON? After seeing other reviews with the same complaints, I quit. I am not wasting anymore of my time hearing all about her body, her kids, and waiting for her to get out of bed and actually DO SOMETHING.

In the Orchard is the story of Maisie and motherhood, day to day life, and the worries, stress and joy that a single day holds.

Overall, In the Orchard is a lovely book examining every day life, and I found myself relating to Maisie’s struggles and feelings more often than not. I look forward to reading more from Eliza Minot.

Thank you to NetGalley, Knopf, and the author for the ARC.

I'll be honest: the cover is what sold me on this book initially. I found the lush green grass, the baby on the blanket, to be calm but almost ominous. I'm not usually one to love single-day stories, but this one sounded interesting.

A main problem in this book is the organization, which I don't think is ultimately Minot's fault. Yes, she wrote the manuscript, but it's up to an editor to put it in an order the reader can best connect to the book. And it's also up to the editor to trim back some of the similes and metaphors: we are hit with one essentially every sentence for the first 20 pages.

I'll be honest: If I hadn't wanted to finish this to provide feedback to Netgalley, I don't think I would have read past the first 20%. Maisie's musings on periods and vaginas and milk letdown were getting too detailed and repetitive for me, as a person who has all that same plumbing and would be able to relate to it. And while a good amount of her thoughts make sense, a good amount of the deep conversations in this book are not believable.

I also found myself extremely annoyed with her husband. Maisie is a mother alone in this relationship, which is astounding to me because she thinks only positive thoughts toward Neil, who is essentially a lump when it comes to parenting. I didn't feel anything for him, even with Maisie thinking on him lovingly (the few times she did). I found this lacking, especially because (at that soccer game) Minot makes a point to have the women talk about division of labor, and then shows that there is absolutely no division of labor in the Moore household, yet Maisie doesn't seem to realize that.

I also found myself impatient to get on with the story. We don't even wake up and begin the day until 50% in. For 50% of these pages, you are sitting in Maisie's bed with Esme, while her useless husband sleeps next to her, and Maisie's mind wanders. I like a lot of Maisie's wonderings, to be fair — she has interesting thoughts on love and childhood — but I went in expecting a little less stream of consciousness and a little more dialogue. It was because of this heavy emphasis on stream of consciousness that I would find myself unsure what was happening when we finally left Daydream Land and came back to present. And many of the Present Scenes were odd, and felt unrealistic, the interaction with Amber and the horse especially so.

Even with all of that, once we actually got TO the orchard, I was interested in the walking around and movement. This improved the thought-wanderings as well, because there were external factors to influence Maisie's thoughts, instead of just her wandering mind. If we had gotten to the orchard earlier — as the title and marketing suggests — this easily could have been a 4-star book for me, even with the abrupt and out of place ending.

This felt very much like Outline to me, but I actually liked this a lot more than Outline. I think this ultimately is an editor problem, not a writer problem.

Unfolding over the course of a single day in which Maisie and her husband take their children to pick apples, In the Orchard is luminous, masterfully crafted, revelatory--a shining exploration of motherhood, childhood, and love.

To be honest I tried to read this book a couple times and I had no idea what was going on. The writing was really different, and I just had a hard time following it. I'd try another book by this author though. Maybe it's just not my kind of books.

I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.

A beautiful, lyrical book about a day in the life of a mother of 4. The way Manot writes made my heart swell. She completely put words to all the raw feelings of motherhood.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the Kindle ARC. I hadn't read anything by Eliza Minot, so I didn't know what to expect. I had high hopes for this book. A lot of Ms. Minot's writing is almost lyrical or poetic. I kept waiting for the story to gel as it begins with Maisie, mom of four young children, dreaming of a debt-free and stress-free life. I thought that storyline would hook me - because who doesn't dream of that? I found some of Maisie's musings on life and motherhood to be almost too intimate to be in a fictional work. I wish I could have gotten more involved in the life of Maisie and her family but I didn't see it that interesting.

I've been a fan of Eliza Minot's writing since "The Tiny One," (as well as her sister's, Susan Minot). "In the Orchard" is lyrical and luminous, with steady, sensuous details and description.. The writing itself is so scrumptious it would be easy to focus on the language alone., The story takes place in one day of apple-picking for Maise, her husband and their children. However, because of the strength and music in Minot's writing, the novel shines with insights of mothering and the nature of love. Highly recommended for those who adore literary and lyrical writing. Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC, I was so thrilled to read it.

this is the story of Maisie, and it is told over the course of a day. Interesting concept, enjoyed the book very much

I really enjoyed IN THE ORCHARD and found it to be a somewhat similar read to Mrs Dalloway. There's something about the introspection, the weaving of past and present, and of course, the similar timeline, that brings to mind Woolf's classic. However, this is certainly a modern approach, and the author does a fantastic job of conveying a sense of time and place with all the expected contemporary concerns and struggles.

The writing style was not my favorite because I didn't care for all the "oh's" and the exclamation points felt tiresome after a while. However, I'm glad I stuck with it because eventually I felt immersed in the story.

I will look forward to more from this author.

This is the story of Maisie and her love for her family told over the course of one day. You dive deeply into the mind of a mother who is just trying to figure out how to do it all "right" for the people she loves, and who is constantly questioning everything in this quest.

Conceptually this was an interesting idea for a story and I enjoyed reading it. That said, I'm not sure it fully reached its goal. The author has a way with words and she worked hard to try to weave present day with all of Maisie's thinking, but it felt very jumpy and I often found myself having to backtrack to figure out what leap we just made. Maisie was a fairly likeable character as well as often relatable. There were sections of her story where I felt she had been in my head, where I was internally screaming "Yes, that's it!" Other times I simply felt she was a bit much in her overthinking and I truly couldn't figure out why anyones head would take this path.

I'm feeling a bit torn with this book. The author truly is a good writer... I often found individual lines that really stood out to me and made me pause to just think. I loved this about the book, and it was the first time in a long time that I actually highlighted text from something I was reading. That said, at times it felt a bit overdone, like the goal of writing good literature was taking away from the story itself. Overall rating: 3.5 stars

Eliza Minot takes you on a journey as a mother. I did not understand it at first, so I started the book over and really let myself be a part of her visualization. Interesting read!