Rating:  Summary: A Wonderful book!! Just amazing! Review: This is such a well written book - about a little girl - and written by a man. Wally Lamb has some how captured the feelings of this little girl and then even as she grows up. It is witty/funny, sad, and triumphant!!! Read it, trust me.
Rating:  Summary: A must-read! Review: This was an absolutely wonderful, irresistable book. Wally Lamb took problems that everyone experiences, and blew them up to such proportions that you could examine them in depth, helping you solve them if they came up in your life. From the first page, Dolores Price stole my heart. She proves that you really can get through anything you put your mind to.
Rating:  Summary: I laughed, I cried... Review: This book rules! I have already read it twice and lent it to two people. Dolores is a character not to be forgotten. My disgust, my heart, my dismay, and my hope was with her the entire time. A book should evoke emotion, not necessarily joy or happiness. This book evoked both of those and much more. Wally Lamb has captured the art of character development with his first book. Bravo!
Rating:  Summary: Hated It! Review: I was expecting this book to be fantastic--the reviews had been great, the story sounded touching, and even the cover was cool. Once I started it, I kept waiting and waiting for it to become interesting. It didn't. This book was a cover-to-cover yawn-a-thon. It was nothing like an Anne Tyler novel. The protagonist was annoying and unsympathetic, the secondary characters were lifeless, and the only thing I learned at the end of it was that I need to curb my instinct to buy books reviewed by Oprah. Thumbs-down
Rating:  Summary: Don't bother... Review: OK, I confess: I didn't have too much trouble getting through this book and I even wanted to know what was going to happen. I suppose I should also admit at the outset that I started She's Come Undone already knowing I'm pretty tired of the genre. The coming of age of a lower-middle class / working class girl growing up in the 50s/60s/70s with a slightly wacked out mother, the usual period kitsch (represented by revolting-sounding processed food inventions), a cast of misfits the heroine connects with, a little sexual or physical abuse courtesy of a male authority figure, a kindly teacher etc. have been done better by countless writers. Try Mona Simpson's delightful Anywhere But Here, the gruelling Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison, or any one of a number of titles by Rita Mae Brown or Joyce Carol Oates. As for She's Come Undone itself, the book was a string of cliches, stereotypes and bash-you-over-the-head metaphors. The desperate whale on the beach (read: Dolores)? Give me a break. The "hooker with a heart of gold" (Roberta the tattoo lady) and crotchety but ultimately lovable granny (who share a grudging but mutual respect, of course)? Groan. The sensitive (hence gay) guidance counsellor whom Dolores doesn't judge because he doesn't judge her? Ugh. The selfish pig masquerading as a sensitive artist? Barf. The sensitive artist (read: single father who takes creative writing classes while parenting cool mulatto kid) masquerading as an inarticulate lug? Yawn. All punctuated, of course, by references to the pressing issues of the day: Vietnam, AIDS, Abortion etc. Give it up, Wally... Although I did chuckle occasionally in the first half of the book, by the end I was rolling my eyes. I can't imagine how such a mediocre novel adrift in a sea of better books in the same category has done anything but drown under the weight of unflattering comparisons. Actually, I do know: Oprah.
Rating:  Summary: Disappointed by "She's come undone" Review: While Lamb's story was interesting, I was expecting a mature story of coming-of age, instead I found the material to be more offensive and disturbing. I feel Lambs need to include graphic language, lesbian experiences and the strecthed grasp of female masturbation a sad, dark novel that left me very un-inspired.
Rating:  Summary: A book I wished would never end Review: Now that I've finished the book, I keep wondering how Delores is doing, and how her life has been going, since I left her. Delores was so pathetic at times, yet so strong at times. Even dangerous. It seemed she was just about to teeter over the edge at all times. Her choices made me laugh and cry, and I read this book for every waking, non-working moment of two weeks.
Rating:  Summary: I read slowly toward the end to keep from finishing. Review: Dolores as a character will stay with me always. She's impulsive, imperfect and so human. Wally Lamb didn't tie up all the loose ends and that's why the book reads like life. I kept wishing that Dolores would find contentment and peace throughout all her experiences and she found a kind of stasis instead. I cried through the last few chapters, and up until now, only Pat Conroy's books could make that happen. Dolores didn't become superwoman; she just survived and that's what happens to most people -- if they're lucky. I read this book without ever watching Oprah and I will be one of the first to buy Mr. Lamb's next release.
Rating:  Summary: Every girl's insecurities validated and conquered! Review: The disfunctions of a family are what define its members, and like the books offered by PAT CONROY,"She's Come Undone" reminds the reader that you have to forgive your family for being themselves. The vulnerability of the heroine would make you swear that Wally Lamb is really a woman. The trials, triumphs, and tears of Deloris will make every woman buy this book for a friend.
Rating:  Summary: Wally Lamb has subtely reminded us what fiction is all about Review: Wally Lamb's "She's Come Undone" is a story, a wonderful story that takes you by the hand, and leads you like a child through the life of unforgettable Dolores Price. Dolores Price is a girl with whom you instantly fall inlove with; in her clumsy ways, in her sincerity, in her need to be accepted. Wally Lamb had done two things very effectively; he has managed to touch the core of our being by inadvertedly and effectively triggering our emotions. Dolores Price's life is our life, and in order to better ourself, we are reminded that we have to over-view our lives, remember the good, remember the bad, this bringing them into some harmony. Therefore bringing ourself into harmony. Wally Lamb shows us that true happiness is an optimistic lie...it cannot be achieved. He reminds us of the simplicity of the heart, and how little it takes to satisfy it. The second thing Wally Lamb has managed to do with such grandiose is to remind us that we are merely human, and this gives us immense strength and immense weakness. Dolores Price was weak at some point in her li (she nearly killed herself) but was very powerful (managed to berrid of a domineering husband whom she kept by her side because she was hoping he'd become better). We all need to be imprisoned, we all need to be freed, there is a place and time for everything...that is what Wally Lamb is trying to tell us...and, at the end of the day, as long as you have learnt from all the joy and all the turmoil, you can be truly redeemed.
|