I can't believe the same author, who penned one of my favorite books, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, wrote this rubbish. While I quite enjoy Historical Fiction, this book was just so dated that the storyline, if that's what you'd call it, was laughable. The book started out sweetly enough, with the main characters, Carl and Annie, just getting married, struggling to "live" on the meager paycheck that Carl brings home. Then Carl starts becoming way too domineering, Annie pouts and cries, Carl apologiz...

This is Betty Smith, the one we love for "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn." This book may seem too blissful, in comparison with the story of a little girl from a troubled family in a poor neighborhood, whom we empathized with with her debut novel. In fact, everything is much more logical. It's always harder for a lonely unhappy child than for a young woman who is married to a nice guy. Even if they are as poor as church mice.So, little Annie. originally from Brooklyn, New York, she comes to her betroth...

This is one of the loveliest, sweetest books I've ever read. It takes a mental adjustment to appreciate the time period, so don't get thrown off by the relationship in the early pages of the book. The reward of watching the young couple's first year of marriage unfold makes the early awkwardness, and, frankly, shocking first bits worth it and actually understandable. This is not a plot driven book, but really a sweet story of young love at a "middle western" college.

Oh, this is just the sweetest, most realistic story of two young adults who are in love and naively believe that being together forever will solve all their problems. Annie and Carl quickly realize that getting married against their families' wishes will be the least of their worries. Annie is a dreamer, a reader, a warm and personable girl that everyone can't help but love. Carl is smart, passionate, funny and diligent, a hardworking guy who earns respect and kindness from all the superiors in

I was always confused by this book because of the title. Our neighbor when I was a kid wrote several steamy romances (Kathy Myers! Winter Flame! Dark Soldier!) and one clean Christian romance called . . . Joy in the Morning. But I loved A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, and that's the one of her books you always hear about. So I didn't dwell on it too much, until this popped up as a Kindle deal and I thought, Well, why not?Okay. For real. This was so good. Of course it was. It's not like A Tree Grows in...

My mom passed this along to me a few years ago, and I finally picked it up this week after reading something about it on someone's blog. It's hard not to love Betty Smith after "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn," so I was optimistic about this one. It was very similar in style and pace to the aforementioned... unsentimental but leaving you cheering for the characters, hoping for them. I really wanted their lives to get easier, really wanted them to keep loving each other and not give up in spite of thei...

I decided to read this novel while in a book hangover after reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. It has some of the same themes such as poverty and going back to simpler times of the 1920s but it does not have the same depth, breadth nor realism. It is simpler and sweeter and a bit unrealistic but a light and uplifting read. The main characters are a young couple from Brooklyn, Carl and Annie, living in the Midwest where Carl is in law school. They marry despite the protests of both sets of parents...

This book is endearing from the very first page. I read it in middle school, after a friend (Leah!) recommended it to me, and immediately fell in love with Annie (it helps that we share the same name!). I had already read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, but this wasn't anything like I expected. Annie is completely charming, and will sweep you off your feet with her wholesome and winsome ways. The book follows Annie and Carl's lives as a poor but earnest newlywed couple in the 1920's. Their dialogue is...

I love Betty Smith. If I could be a writer, I would hope my work would be similar to her style. She grew up in Brooklyn, and is most known for her book "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn," which still ranks as my #1 book.I appreciate the way Betty Smith can make you attach to characters. You feel like you are peeking into their windows and watching it first hand. This story is based around a young, married couple in the 1920s, trying desperately to stay afloat. It is a struggle without feeling like a str...

tw: attempted rape, never discussed again, perpetrated by the main characterAfter reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, a book I wholeheartedly loved, I wanted to read something else written by Betty Smith. Her second most popular book, even though with a huge gap between them, was Joy in the Morning and that's obviously the one I picked up and read in 2017. Now, in those years I was in a particular mindset where if I loved a certain book from a certain author I had to love all of their other books

I loved every page of this sweet and honest look at the first year and a half of marriage for young Annie and Carl. It's impossible to not love Annie from the moment she babbles - in her thick Brooklyn accent - to the Town Hall marriage clerk about all the Middle West books she's read. The love between Carl & Annie is true and, yes, uplifting. But Smith never descends into schmaltz or sentimentality. Because this is such a seemingly simple story, I wavered between giving this 4 or 5 stars. But t...

Here I am reading this book again. I love this book, but, it's interesting to learn so much about 1928. The money, for one thing gets a bit confusing as you could get so much more with 1 dollar back then than now. The frustrating thing is how few choices a woman had back then. Annie's main purpose was to get married and have babies even though she was somewhat smarter than her husband who would become a lawyer. Sometimes Carl would get so mad at her when she just wanted to do her own thing and s...

A cute story about a young married couple's first year/year and a half of marriage. Also, it has something that I feel most people writing romance should pay attention to. You ready?It's a little thing called COMMUNICATION. THEY TALK THEIR PROBLEMS OUT AND IT IS BEAUTIFUL. Seriously, no more miscommunication in relationships. It's not necessary and also very annoying. *Gets off soapbox*15+ for marital discussions that are blunt (but not graphic) and language

This was a 3.5 book for me by the author of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn one of my childhood favorites. Enjoyable. Easy to read. I just think I missed the ideal time of my life to read it.

There was something so very special about this book to me. I wanted to read this one by Betty Smith because I liked "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" so much and I was also looking for a little nostalgia.Boy did I get nostalgia with this book. I love stories from the early 20th Century. We tend to romanticize that period of American History. I do anyway. There's something about the struggles and the ethics of those times that we refer to as "simpler". I guess they were simple, yet I don't think people

After reading and finishing "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn," also by Betty Smith, I wanted to read something else that she wrote, so I picked up "Joy in the Morning," which she wrote 20 years later. It held my interest and was a quick read. Like "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn," "Joy in the Morning" is a novel with an auto-biographical theme. It provides a fictionalized account of Betty Smith's first year of marriage to a law student attending a mid-western university (the University of Michigan in Ann Arb...

My mom told me many years ago I needed to read this. Can't believe I waited so long. Wonderful book. Annie was such a great character. A lot of her traits reminded me of myself. The way her mind worked; her sense of optimism, and she was a book lover and writer. This book was just a comfort to read, and though it wasn't a "can't put down" thriller type of book, I still found myself wanting to keep reading each time I picked it up.

If I could, this would be 3.5 stars. I felt like I was falling in love again for the first time with my husband. This story was a sweet love story and really had me reminising about courtship and being a newlywed. Anyone who has been poor and struggling as a newlywed, but so in love that it doesn't matter, will love relating to this book. It is an easy read and lighthearted.

This book was a "joy" to read! Betty Smith does such a wonderful job of telling the story of a young couple's first year of marriage, in 1927, and all the ups and downs of life, along with how Carl and Annie deal with them and with each other. I loved it!!

Sometimes even a reader such as myself needs a heartwarming book. The good thing about Betty Smith is that her version of heartwarming is always peppered with enough realism about the way life goes that she, narrowly, avoids sentimentality. I have read her most famous novel, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, several times. I will probably read it again someday. Joy in the Morning was her last novel. After reading it I learned that she devoted much of her writing life to plays. In fact Annie, the heroin

This definitely wasn't A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, but I decided that Betty Smith had such a gift for capturing certain times of life so accurately that you feel as if she has written about YOUR life, even if the circumstances of your life and the circumstances of the characters in her book hardly match up at all. This novel about a newly married young couple details the ups and the downs and the steep learning curve of marriage so acutely that it's almost painful to read at times. Plot-wise, ther...

What amazed me the most about Betty Smith in the stage when I was devouring all her books was that she weaved together such different plots in the same setting: amongst Irish immigrants in Great Depression era New York. The heroine of this book is older and much more outgoing than Francie in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, but she's also literary, and this is the story of how she comes into her own in exploring her gifts.

Where have you been all my life?

I picked this book up because I loved A Tree Grows in Brooklyn so much. Written by the same author, this is a sweet story about the first year of marriage of two young people set in the late 1920s. They love each other, want to be together, are a little naive, their families aren't supportive of them marrying so young, but they set out to prove that they can do it. I particularly enjoy it because neither give up their passion (him for completing law school, her for her reading/writing). They lea...

Personal copyI remember reading this in my early 20s and thinking it was delightful.It did not stand the test of time for me. Carl is overbearing, everybody else awful (we only hear about them), and poor Annie has no good path to follow. I wanted to travel back in time and send her off to a teacher training program! There are also horribly racist parts, mostly involving Native Americans, and Carl is quite homophobic. Annie is kind and understanding of everyone, which was good to see.The utter fo...

Betty Smith is my writing queen. Such a fabulous book - Smith tells a simple, believable story. It's great because of how unembellished it is. The book is a story of a young married couple who struggles with finances (is there any other kind?) living in the American Midwest during the late 1920s. Carl is a young man of twenty training to be a lawyer, and Annie is his eighteen year old bride. Like all of Smith's books, the story doesn't have much of a concrete plot - it flows along gently with th...

I put this in my personal favorites because as a teen and young woman I LOVED this book and resd it over, and over and over. I bought this edition a few years ago and tried to re-read it...and couldn't finish it. Sometimes growing up sucks.

Did you ever read a book and just sit there staring at it after you finished with a big smile on your face? Yet inside you were slightly sad that you had to say goodbye to the characters that became a big part of Your life over the past few days? This book was so good. Annie the main character was absolutely lovable, her husband Carl too! I don’t know why I never read this book or anything else by Betty Smith, after reading “A tree grows in Brooklyn” four times, at least! A tree grows in Brookly...

After a runaway marriage, a young couple faces hardship during their first year of marriage as one studies to become a lawyer and the other begins a career in writing. Set in 1927, this autobiographical novel is clear-eyed about its all-too-human characters, but ultimately hopeful.

I’m beginning to think Betty Smith May be one of my favorite authors. Her stories are simple and sweet yet they don’t shy away from difficulties or whitewash life. Everything I’ve read by her is perfectly balanced with optimism and realism. This book was no exception. I’d like to write as she does.