Best Kept Secret

Family Tree #3

by Ann M. Martin

Four girls. Four generations. One family.

The third installment of the exquisite new series from Ann M. Martin follows Francie, Dana's daughter, to Princeton, NJ, in the 1980s.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Middle Grade, Childrens, Historical, Family, Fiction, Audiobook

229 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 29, 2014

About the author

Ann Matthews Martin was born on August 12, 1955. She grew up in Princeton, New Jersey, with her parents and her younger sister, Jane. After graduating from Smith College, Ann became a teacher and then an editor of children's books. She's now a full-time writer.

Ann gets the ideas for her books from many different places. Some are based on personal experiences, while others are based on childhood memories and feelings. Many are written about contemporary problems or events. All of Ann's characters, even the members of the Baby-sitters Club, are made up. But many of her characters are based on real people. Sometimes Ann names her characters after people she knows, and other times she simply chooses names that she likes.

Ann has always enjoyed writing. Even before she was old enough to write, she would dictate stories to her mother to write down for her. Some of her favorite authors at that time were Lewis Carroll, P. L. Travers, Hugh Lofting, Astrid Lindgren, and Roald Dahl. They inspired her to become a writer herself.

Since ending the BSC series in 2000, Ann’s writing has concentrated on single novels, many of which are set in the 1960s.

After living in New York City for many years, Ann moved to the Hudson Valley in upstate New York where she now lives with her dog, Sadie, and her cats, Gussie, Willy and Woody. Her hobbies are reading, sewing, and needlework. Her favorite thing to do is to make clothes for children.

http://us.macmillan.com/author/annmma...

Reviews

[Manybooks · Rating 3 out of 5]

In Best Kept Secret, in the third instalment of Ann M. Martin's Family Tree series, Francie Goldberg (Abby's granddaughter and Dana's daughter and as such also the main character featured and portrayed in Best Kept Secret) definitely does not face and experience quite as much sadness and both emotional and physical trauma as either her grandmother and mother have faced in Better to Wish (for Abby) and in The Long Way Home (for both Abby and her daughter Dana). And it has indeed been rather heartening and positive to read and realise that even though especially Abby's relationship with her daughter, with Dana, is still rather seriously strained and rocky, at least Dana herself has most definitely much matured and calmed down a bit from the often annoyingly and infuriatingly spoiled and self indulgent, utterly selfish brat she was generally, she was often depicted as being in The Long Way Home.

However, although Best Kept Secret has therefore and with a certainty been a considerably more enjoyable and readable (not to mention also more relatable) reading experience than the first two books of the series were for me (than both Better to Wish and The Long Way Home) I still and frustratingly, even more than a tad angrily find it majorly and massively off-putting that once again, author Ann M. Martin seems to literally wallow and revel in throwing one doom and gloom nastiness, one sad and problematic scenario and tragedy after another at this family, at these families. From Francie's dangerous encounter with a sexual predator, which she keeps secret and for which she feels shame and personal blame, as she thinks that she is responsible, due to her having kept silent, that another young girl was kidnapped and then murdered to Francie's parents divorcing, not to mention that the author basically kills off both Aunt Adele and Uncle Peter, with especially Aunt Adele's death from breast cancer feeling at least to and for me rather gratuitous, as I really and truly am personally quite massively uncomfortable with the fact that Ann M. Martin seems to almost gleefully throw in as many tragedies as possible into her narrative stewing pot, and I do have to admit that I am constantly rolling my eyes with a bit of an "oh no, not again" type of reaction (and this has most definitely and indeed considerably lessened my potential reading pleasure with regard to Best Kept Secret, although indeed, I have definitely enjoyed this novel quite a bit more than the previous instalments of the Family Tree series and do much hope that the fourth and final novel in the series, that Home is the Place will continue to improve, to mature and be a better and perhaps not quite as gloomy and as frustrating a read).

[rue ⋆˚꩜｡ · Rating 4 out of 5]

the nostalgia is so comforting <3

[Audrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This third book in the Family Tree series features Frances “Francie” Goldberg. (What an unfortunate name.) Born in 1970, Francie is five years older than me, so I was looking forward to the portrayal of the 1980s, but there is nothing to distinguish the period. No Challenger disaster, no hair spray, no hysteria about how the hole in the ozone meant the end of the world. Oh, well.







Overall, I was gripped by the story. A few scenes in particular really captivated me. Francie’s reaction to the predator is very typical of kids that age. That’s why in the late 80s we started getting all these lectures about you had to tell someone even if the predator had threatened you.

There’s quite a bit of extended family now, and we finally get to see Fred (and Peter) again. Dana is still a bit of a brat and antagonistic toward Abby. I expect this and a few other plot lines to finally resolve in the final story. There are a few deaths in this one, but they didn’t make me tear up like in the previous two books.

Francie has her own set of childhood issues, including dyslexia, prejudice divorce, abduction attempt, and family relationships. The high school years are glossed over really quickly; most of the time is in elementary and middle school.

Clean content

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked this book best out of the three because you could really see how the decisions of one generation influenced the other ones. It was also fun to see some characters reappear with different roles. Adele, who was just the kid sister in Abby's book, turned out to be this lively, spunky, wonderful person. Abby turned into this cautious, semi-estranged grandmother. And Papa Luther, well he stayed his racist self. I fell in love with Francie's character in what, 220 pages? I swear that girl's got a heart of gold. Also, it was great to see her succeed despite her learning disability, every award she earned she definitely deserved. When Peter came, Francie was great with him too, and I really liked their dynamic as well. I'm excited to see where her life takes her. I know she'll be a great mother. I really hope her marriage works out and nobody dies too soon or gets divorced because that seems to be the theme here. Oh also I almost forgot: that secret. I feel like she could have had it a lot easier if she just told somebody about what happened to her. She didn't know what to do in that situation and he had threatened her so she was scared. What happened to Erin was not her fault. I feel like maybe in the 4th book she'l finally come clean.

[Esther LeeAnn · Rating 5 out of 5]

@LydiaHunt thank you thank you for introducing me to these great series!!!

[January · Rating 3 out of 5]

Best Kept Secret by Ann M. Martin
The Third Generation
Family Tree #3
219-page Hardback

Genre: Family Saga, Juvenile Fiction,

Featuring: 1977-1994, Princeton, New Jersey; 6-23, Bildungsroman, School, Dyslexia, Maine, Family Drama, Prejudice, Racism, Halloween, Crime, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, Cancer, Divorce, Down Syndrome, Death, Writing, Valentine's Day, Funerals

Rating as a movie: PG for criminal innuendos

Songs for the soundtrack: "My Way" by Elvis Presley, "Last Dance" by Donna Summer, "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" by Michael Jackson, "Santa Baby" by Eartha Kitt with Henri René and His Orchestra, "Sheep May Safely Graze" by Johann Sebastian Bach, "Rhapsody In Blue" by George Gershwin

Books mentioned: Hop on Pop by Dr. Seuss, One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish by Dr. Seuss

My rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️½👧🏼👩🏼‍🦱

My thoughts: Why is Francie calling her dad Matthew and her mom Dana? It threw me off. This had the most action of the books but some of the events I wasn't fond of, I don't like secrets. The family dynamics and drama were also very odd, but not my time, I guess toxicity was normal then.

Recommend to others: Yes, this is more of the Martin I'm used to.

Family Tree
1. Better to Wish (2013)
2. The Long Way Home (2013)
3. Best Kept Secret (2014)
4. Home Is the Place (2014)

[Sasha Bredenhof · Rating 3 out of 5]

Still not as good as the first book but it's cool to see the family growing and changing.

[Angel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I forgot how sad these book are.. :(

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

So emotional! I cried 28828382727 tears during this, deserves over a million stars.

[Katie Fitzgerald · Rating 3 out of 5]

Best Kept Secret is the story of Francie (granddaughter of Abby from Better to Wish and daughter of Dana from The Long Way Home), who is growing up in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Though Francie doesn't experience the same turmoil as her mother and grandmother, her story is marked by its share of difficulties. As a young girl, Francie is approached on the street by an abductor. She doesn't go with him, but neither does she report the incident, so she experiences terrible guilt when another young girl goes missing. The guilt of this incident follows her through the rest of her childhood, causing her to become preoccupied with being good and feeling safe.

Francie doesn't really have much of a role in her own story. Rather, she observes characters introduced in the previous books and comments on their relationships. Abby's free-spirited sister Adele, Dana's brother Peter, who has Down Syndrome, and Papa Luther, the tyrannical family patriarch all reappear in this book. I was also thrilled to note that Martin has not forgotten Fred, Abby's long-lost disabled brother who was banished to a home as a child. I expressed my hopes for this character in my review of The Long Way Home, and was not disappointed.

This book is the weakest of the series so far, and the least evocative of its time period. (I think this is partly because the time period is still so recent.) Still, reading these books is like watching an historical soap opera, and even when the writing is sometimes bland, the overall sense of being allowed to eavesdrop on 100 years of family history is hugely appealing.

[Angie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book tells the story of Francie as she grows up in the 1970s and 80s. She has to deal with her parents' divorce, her disabled uncle moving in, new friends, new schools, family feuds and all the things that come with growing up. This is the third book in this series; the previous two followed Francie's mom and grandma. A lot of time is covered in this short novel. It starts with Francie starting school and ends with her married with a baby on the way. Unfortunately, the span of years really cuts down on the storytelling. Each chapter is basically a different year in her life so very little is actual told about what happens to her on a daily basis. It is more like a collection of vignettes than a fully fleshed-out story. There are things like the feud between family members that is mentioned but never really explained. And there is an incident when Francie is young where she is almost kidnapped and another girl disappears. This is mentioned several times but really never goes anywhere. I think the book would have been better served to tell Francie's story through childhood with more attention to detail than to try and tell her entire life story in 200 pages.

I received a copy of this book from Netgalley.

[Gabrielle S · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay first of all the author really likes the name Claudia. There is nothing wrong with that of course but I was not expecting a Babysitters' Club babysitter name. She does not appear until the end of the book and this is not a spoiler at all.

So this is the third in the series of books following four generations of women growing into adulthood. Abby, Dana and now Francie. Francie is growing up in the late 70s and early 80s. Francie is an only child. This is, like the other books, small snippets of the important events in her life. There is one major even and that is what the title is referring to. I am not going to spoiler it but Francie really shouldn't have kept that secret.

My main problem with the book is the same as my main problem with the last one which is that Dana is a horrible brat. Even as an adult. I still don't understand why she hated her mother.

Anyway I will definitely read the last one.

This was review copy provided to me by Netgalley.

[Ms. B · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ann M. Martin's Family Tree series continues. In this installment, we meet Francie, Dana's daughter. Francie like Grandma Abby in Book 1 is a very likable character. Dana vacillates between being the self-centered character she was in Book 2 to being a kind caretaker. She is good mother to Francie and takes her brother Peter in as a family member as Grandma Abby grows too old to take care of him. The best part of this book is revisiting all the characters from the previous books; Papa Luther, Fred, Adele, Peter and more. Definitely looking forward to the conclusion of this series in Book 4!

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

A well-written book, but I did have a few problems with it. One issue I had was that at times it seemed a bit disjointed - the jumps between chapters and years could have been smoother, and the author sometimes didn't seem sure what genre she wanted to write in. My biggest problem with the book was that there were some major incidents that were never resolved and were largely ignored after they happened - this made the book feel a bit unfinished. Received from NetGalley.

[Beth · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is book three in the series, and I've really been disappointed with this series. I feel like each book gets worse. Very depressing books; it's unbelievable the turmoil every girl in each generation of this family has to go through. No one seems to like each other and many characters are unlikable. I guess I was mistaken in thinking this would be a heartwarming, multi-generational story of strong, beloved women/characters.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is the third in a series of four. It's also the most depressing of the three. I enjoyed the first book the most except for the abrupt ending. The ending of the second book is better. The ending of this book is the best. I look forward to reading the last book in the series when it comes out next year.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

Francie and her parents live in Princeton, NJ and they are happy there. But all of the sudden everything changes. Francie has to keep a secret from her parents that she almost gets kidnapped. Her parents get a divorce and she loses her Aunt Adele and Papa Luther (not as sorry for that one) she keeps getting her entire life changed. Will she be able to deal with everything that's going on?

[Oak Lawn Public Library - Youth Services · Rating 2 out of 5]

Title: Best Kept Secret (Family Tree Book 3)
Author: Ann M. Martin
Lexile Level: 730L
Pages: 219
Recommendations & Comments: This is the third in a four-book series that follows the life of a girl in different generations of the same family. This book follows Francie, a girl from Princeton, New Jersey as she grows from a second-grader into an adult over the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. At first it seems to be about her struggle with dyslexia, and while that is a challenge she must overcome, it is not the main theme of the story. Later, a troubling encounter with a stranger haunts her for years – but while she thinks of it often, that is also not the tale’s focus. The book isn’t really about any one idea, but rather a way to follow a girl’s growth over time. Each chapter jumps ahead several months or even years from the previous chapter, then narrates another few days. Along the way, Francie will encounter a variety of incidents affecting her family, from a favorite aunt’s health scares to moving to caring for an uncle with Down’s Syndrome.

I came into this not having read the first two books. I suspect that some unexplained and unresolved mysteries surrounding older generations of the family might make more sense if I had. That aside, the writing style and the dialogue are both somewhat flat, so that all the dramatic incidents are unlikely to draw much emotion from readers. This is probably best suited for those who enjoy reading about characters growing up over time; they might benefit from reading the other books in the series.
Reviewed By: Tom
2 out of 5

[Rosie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the third part of this series and focuses on Francie, the daughter of Dana (from book 2) and granddaughter of Abby (from books 1). Francie's growing up years are during the late 70's to the 80's. Just like her mother and grandma, Francie has her own troubles to deal with. Her mother and grandma do not speak much, her parents get divorced, and her uncle Peter moves in. I thought Francie was an okay character, but there's a lot going on for one book. I did like how the lives of Abby and Dana affected Francie, but I felt like Francie's story was a bit disjointed in the sense that there wasn't a main issue that she had to deal with compared to the other two books. But overall I do like how each generation is being interconnected in each book.

[Mary Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best Kept Secret is my favorite book in Ann M. Martin's Family Tree saga so far. I enjoyed reading about Francie, adult Dana, Adele, Sadie, Kaylee and Peter. I have to admit when Dana and Matthew announced the horrible news to Francie that they are getting divorced, I got slightly annoyed with Francie's reaction. Quickly, I put myself in her shoes and told myself, Of course she's not going to be okay. Her whole world had fallen apart within minutes. How the hell she was going to react? And I started liking Francie again.

This book definitely had tearjerkers, especially Adele's battle with cancer and her subsequent death. But Peter and Sadie's deaths also got to me too.

[Jess · Rating 4 out of 5]

I do feel this was a little weaker than the first two books, but I adored Francie as a character. Finally finding out what happened to Fred made me cry (happy and sad tears, if you can believe it.) I hope the final book in the series resolves the tension between Abby and Dana - I hate that they clash so much, probably as much as Francie does. I hope we hear more about Rose's life, and Julia's and Nell's, and everything else. The sprawling cast of characters is amazing and makes the story feel so real, but I need these books to be twice as long so I can learn about the lives of everybody.

[Sophie Halperin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this book. The books in this series just keep getting sadder, which I don't love. Also, the whole plot didn't fit together. Somehow, this book kept me reading for hours which is a good sign. The charachters were very loveable. This book is also definetly at my level, which made my rating higher. Somehow, I want to read the fourth book still. My favorite charachter was Francie and Kaycee and my favorite couple was George and Francie. They are so cute!!! I would reccomend this book if you enjoyed the first two books.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book follows Dana's daughter Francie (the third generation) and all of the many life changes she faces. Everything from the death of her great-aunt Adele to her Uncle Peter moving in to the death of Papa Luther to the divorce of her parents comes into this installment of the Family Tree series.

[Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Third in a series about generations in a family. Not my favorite one of the series. The “secret” is never really addressed or resolved and it really bothered me. This entire family needs an intervention!

[Liz Owen · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was alright. I wish that there would have been a resolution between Dana and Abigail. It is sad when a character you love doesn’t know their own grandchild more. The hunt for Fred and Francie’s disability really added to the story!

[Emma Aeilts · Rating 3 out of 5]

3/5. started to lose track of the family HAHA. it is so wild to live through the generations. it makes me feel weird like i cant wrap my head around it. and i resonate with all these characters in different ways. i cant beliebe this was my mom!! now it's my story

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

#3 in the Family Tree series following Abby's granddaughter / Dana's daughter named Francie. Francie's secret follows her into the next installment of the book, where as a mother she is overprotective of her own daughter.

[Eden]

terrible

[Miss Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

An upper elementary book continuing the saga of one family where a new daughter is born and her life is charted amongst death, divorce, and an almost kidnapping.

[megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved it