It seems at best unhelpful and at worst cruel to give a one-sentence review, so I will write something more about Anne Tyler’s Redhead By the Side of the Road, which I received thanks to Knopf Doubleday and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I’m not a huge Anne Tyler fan, and remember enjoying a few of her books quite a bit (Accidental Tourist comes to mind), but the last couple I tried to get into just didn’t do it for me (Spool of Blue Thread – meh). I did think I’d get through this one, it being fewer than 200 pages…but I confess I didn’t. Couldn’t. Wouldn’t. And I have no excuses —  I’m quarantined at home, FFS. But that’s reality.

The protagonist is a classic nerdy introvert, with two things to occupy him: he is a super in an apartment building in Baltimore and is also a self-employed tech expert. In some ways I did appreciate him, as I relate to the idea of finding other people somewhat out of reach for the most part, but I actually didn’t really care…so two stars and it’s unlikely I will recommend it to my book group friends.

Oh, and the one sentence review? “Yawn.”