The first part of "Tara Road", which is a bit slow, tells the story of Ria Lynch, her marriage to Danny Lynch, and her life with him and their two children as they buy a house and renovate it on Tara Road. It also tells the stories of Ria's friends, especially Rosemary Ryan, not quite the friend she appears to be; Gertie, a battered wife who is so used to living a lie that she actually believes it; and Colm, who is struggling to run a restaurant while dealing with his sister's problems.

"Tara Road" picks up pace in the second part, when Ria's life takes an unexpected turn, and she switches houses with Marilyn Vine, an American, who is dealing (not very well) with a tragedy in her life. While the reader knows all about Ria's life (more, in fact than she does), the reader discovers Marilyn's story at the same time as Ria does. In the end, Ria's stay in Connecticut and Marilyn's stay on Tara Road, change them both in ways they never imagined.

Although a bit too long (the first part drags at times), this was an enjoyable read and towards the end, I couldn't put it down. As always, Binchey fills the book with memorable characters, some of whom you'll like, others would will dislike quite a bit. I highly recommend "Tara Road". ( )

I got this book at a library book sale, and even though it didn't seem to appeal to me, I still had room for one more book in my bag, so I decided to get it. I originally planned on giving it away, but I thought I would give it a shot. It started very slow, and remained that way. Although there was a decent story in all of the rambling, it was just too much to keep my interest. I think it took me about 3 weeks to finally finish the book and it left me disappointed. she should have cut out half of the jabbering and just stuck to the main idea of the story. It would have been a much shorter story, but a much easier one to read. ( )

it is the 2nd time i have tried to read this book but cannot even get 1/2 way through, i give up it is much too slow ( )

Here's something bizarre: while reading "Tara Road", the lyrics of an old, cheesy pop song kept coming to me. They go something like this: "words don't come easy to me..." Well, these lyrics stuck to my head, I think, because it's the complete opposite with Binchy. Words come easy, very easy to her!! This book is long, & I think definitely too long for the actual content.

The story is not bad at all: Two women, Ria & Marilyn. One Irish, living in Dublin. The other American, living in Stoneyfield or whatever it's called. Both trapped in a very bad situation, a life crisis of some sort. So far, so good. There's also a large supporting cast of characters, which are all vividly drawn, as are the main characters. One basic characteristic of all Binchy's books is the fact that the reader is instantly drawn in the characters' world, in their everyday lives. This happens in "Tara Road" too...But there's a catch: these everyday lives of these everyday people are, I'm afraid, not that interesting.

One thing that disappointed me is Ria's stupidity, or naivite (if I want to be kinder). All sorts of cheating & infidelity & deceit happens under her nose. But Ria, angelic Ria, doesn't understand a thing. She keeps on cooking & baking in her delightful, homey, filled-with-people kitchen, & doesn't have a clue about anything. This to me is, to say the least, insulting to the reader's intelligence. I mean, come on, how stupid can this woman be? And OK, she's naive, she's innocent, she's angelic & only thinks kind thoughts. But Binchy could at least give us a satisfying ending. I won't go into details, but I can say this: there's no sense of closure in the end, no sense of understanding or seeing things clearly. Yes, Ria has grown & changed after coming back from the States. But her blindness when it comes to her husband is very much the same.

As for the other main character, Marilyn, I think she's probably thrown in the story to (supposedly) make it more colourful, more international. But, as many reviewers have noted, Marilyn & her American friends use, surprisingly, Irish expressions! Plus, there's essentially no description of America & Ria's surroundings there, except of course a detailed description of Marilyn's house.

It may sound that I didn't like the book: it's not true, I did enjoy it & read it easily in a couple of days, at the beach. But if I had to say one thing about it, it would be that this is a retelling of the same old story that Binchy writes. After reading some of her other books, "Tara Road" seemed like words, words, words that came to no satisfying conclusion... ( )

I read Maeve Binchy's Circle of Friends and enjoyed it for the lighter read that it was. I liked Tara Road but I found it kind of predictable, and it took way too long to get into the actual story. I mean, I learned that Ria's husband left her by reading the back of the book, so why did I have to wait 200 pages to get to that part in the story? Mainly, I think the back cover shouldn't have told that much of the premise, there was so much foreshadowing that Danny was going to leave Ria that it was sickening, it would have been a bit nicer to not already know about it.

In general though, I did like it, but I'm not going to go running out and pick up another one of Binchy's books. I saw on IMDb that there was a movie made from the book, but after watching the trailer I'm not going to add that to my netflix queue... I really hate Andie MacDowell for some unknown reason. ( )