Holiday Sale! Get an annual membership for 20% off!

Book Summary and Reviews of Three Days in June by Anne Tyler

Three Days in June by Anne Tyler

Three Days in June

A Novel

by Anne Tyler

  • Readers' Rating:
  • Publishes:
  • Feb 11, 2025, 176 pages
  • Rate this book

About this book

Book Summary

A new Anne Tyler novel destined to be an instant classic: a socially awkward mother of the bride navigates the days before and after her daughter's wedding.

Gail Baines is having a bad day. To start, she loses her job—or quits, depending on whom you ask. Tomorrow her daughter, Debbie, is getting married, and she hasn't even been invited to the spa day organized by the mother of the groom. Then, Gail's ex-husband, Max, arrives unannounced on her doorstep, carrying a cat, without a place to stay, and without even a suit.

But the true crisis lands when Debbie shares with her parents a secret she has just learned about her husband to be. It will not only throw the wedding into question but also stir up Gail and Max's past.

Told with deep sensitivity and a tart sense of humor, full of the joys and heartbreaks of love and marriage and family life, Three Days in June is a triumph, and gives us the perennially bestselling, Pulitzer Prize–winning writer at the height of her powers.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"[An] appealing story...As in Tyler's previous work, there's not much of a plot, but the pleasure is in learning how her characters tick, as Gail time and again fails to find the proper tact. By the end of the story, messy human relationships are proven to be worth all the trouble they cause. This will gratify Tyler's fans." —Publishers Weekly

"[T]he novel is very short, but Tyler's touch is as delicate, her empathy for human beings and all their quirks as evident in her 25th work of fiction as it was in her first...Sweet, sharp, and satisfying." —Kirkus Reviews

This information about Three Days in June was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

Write your own reviewwrite your own review

Connie H. (Sachse, TX)

Having bad days
There is nothing like a stressful event (like say a daughter's wedding for example) that can awaken both past and present memories, anxious thoughts and hidden secrets that we might wish to keep buried. This is what is happening to Gail Baines as she struggles through time with her thoughts in these "three days in June." I loved all the characters. They were well-developed, truly wonderful, funny and relatable. This book was an easy, fast read and I enjoyed every minute of it. I think it would be a great book for book clubs, due to its relatable content, as who hasn't had bad days. It provided me with a respite from my own anxious thoughts, just to be able to sit down in my favorite chair with a nice cup of tea and to be transported into a place that offers a look at family life, with all its quirkiness, a bit of messiness, and a connectedness.

Wendy K. (Rising Fawn, GA)

I loved "Three Days in June
This book drew me in and kept my attention until the very end. In fact I didn't want it to end. Thoroughly enjoyable. Gail Baines' interior dialogue came across as real and true. The writing is tight, engaging, and funny. Anyone who wants an absorbing, entertaining and light read would enjoy this. Moreover, I think any woman would find Gail incredibly relatable.

Karen R. (Columbus, OH)

Anne Tyler does it again
In typical Anne Tyler fashion, she makes the ordinary characters in Three Days In June very interesting. The three days in June are the day before, the day of, and the day after a wedding. I found myself thinking of these characters even when I wasn't reading this book. This is a delightful character driven book. I highly recommend.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

Anne Tyler Author Biography

Photo: Diana Walker

Anne Tyler's 50 Year Writing Career

In March 2013, Anne Tyler announced the title of her upcoming novel in an interview with the BBC. She also noted that she didn't want to finish another novel - not even this one. She described the book as a "sprawling family saga," which starts with the present generation and then moves back, one generation at a time. Fortunately, she realized she was only interested in three generations. Before this revelation, she figured A Spool of Blue Thread could go on long enough that she might die before its publication! That way she wouldn't have the hassle of the editing, polishing, promoting and worrying if the book was any good or not.

This sounds like the pressure of thinking up something new and original, combined with her obvious penchant for ...

... Full Biography
Author Interview

Other books by Anne Tyler at BookBrowse
  • The Amateur Marriage jacket

12 more...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

More Recommendations

Readers Also Browsed . . .

more literary fiction...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: The Demon of Unrest
    The Demon of Unrest
    by Erik Larson
    In the aftermath of the 1860 presidential election, the divided United States began to collapse as ...
  • Book Jacket: Daughters of Shandong
    Daughters of Shandong
    by Eve J. Chung
    Daughters of Shandong is the debut novel of Eve J. Chung, a human rights lawyer living in New York. ...
  • Book Jacket
    The Avian Hourglass
    by Lindsey Drager
    It would be easy to describe The Avian Hourglass as "haunting" or even "dystopian," but neither of ...
  • Book Jacket: Roman Year
    Roman Year
    by Andre Aciman
    In this memoir, author André Aciman recounts his family's resettlement for a year in Rome due ...

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
The Berry Pickers
by Amanda Peters
A four-year-old Mi'kmaq girl disappears, leaving a mystery unsolved for fifty years.
Who Said...

A book may be compared to your neighbor...

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

F the M

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.