Rating: 
Summary: Rollercoaster ride
Review: We Were the Mulvaneys takes the reader from one extreme to another starting with an unrealistically happy family environment and unfolding into a mystifiying series of dysfunction. The ride might have been enjoyable if the characters motivaitons were clear and there was connectedness between their thoughts and actions. Too many of the character's responses were unbelievable and unsound. More than one character possessed a perfect, God-like disposition that after misfortune turned into a violent, uncapable, dispictable person. Oates has a fascinating ability to create warmth in her book. The characters and their relationships were initially provoking. Her descriptions the environment felt like a cozy, warm fire. The plot however was unsettling in topic and disjointed in outcome.
Rating: 
Summary: Take it easy on Joyce
Review: Well, this novel will not change your perspective on family, nor will it make you understand what it is like to be part of a blessed family and to lose those blessings one by one. However, it will teach you how to live within a character's perspective. The details of High Point Farm are exquisite. The messy steps where lost belongings eventually appear, the animals that link the people to one another, the house itself all resonate of truth. Is this a great book? Probably not. For four hundred pages each of the character's becomes and stays traumatized by a crime that none of them deserved but all served to amplify. Then, in the last fifty pages or so they are all healed (except for those who die). We are all weak. However, few of us are as weak as Mike Mulvaney the elder. He visits upon his own family the violent separation of parent and child which haunted his youth. His wife Corrinne gives Christians,wives and moms a bad name so that's a pretty powerful trifecta. The children are vivid at times and then relegated to secondary status as adults. It is as if they cease to be interesting to Oates when they become adults. Maybe that's because adults eventually have to stop worrying about the sins of their parents and must then focus on their own impact on the world. Still, I liked the book and would recommend it to budding writers as an example of several elements of the craft. However, for those of us who were not the Mulvaneys, it may be a bit tedious in its relentless adolescence.
Rating: 
Summary: Doesn't quite add up
Review: I'm a medium-sized fan of Oates—American Appetites and Because it is Bitter, Because it is My Heart are favorites. But this saga misses the boat a bit. It never seems logical, or even probable that the father would exile his daughter for being raped. Though this book is set in the 1970s, it feels more like a 1950s morality tale. It takes that "things fall apart, the center cannot hold" thing too far, making a seemingly ideal family go from Leave it to Beaver perfection to the mean, wacked out folks they become due to one incident...terrible as it may have been. ... I kept reading and reading and was left dissapointed by the end. Like some romance novelist, Oates sews everything neatly up. If the Mulvaneys got that messed up by the earlier rape, they probably won't keep their stuff together either.
Rating: 
Summary: just MY opinion
Review: FIVE stars because I think Joyce Carol Oates has written her story very well. But, the family! I would like to give them MINUS FIVE stars. I was disturbed by the family's issues. I got caught up in them and that's why I think Oates deserves credit for her writing. But, I can imagine all of the Mulvaney's writing letters to Dr Phil and Gary Zukav and Cheryl Richardson and asking for HELP on "Oprah." Before I read this book, I had finished the first three books in the 26 FAIRMOUNT AVENUE children's chapter book series. After finishing the Mulvaney's, I wondered if the family in the chapter book series had tremendous pain in their future. If so, I hope the dePaola family (of the children's books) deal with their pain better than the Mulvaney's. I hope ALL OF US deal with family pain better than the Mulvaney's.
Rating:
Summary: Suicide Inducing
Review: This book is one of the most depressing novels I have ever read. Yes, it is very well written. Oates is a masterful story teller. But the main characters, the Mulvaneys, (with the exception of Marianne) are the most self-absorbed, shallow, deluded and cruel family members you could ever meet. Their actions are inexplicable and unforgivable. Possibly most annoying, the epilogue is so different from the rest of the book and so out of character for this family that it has the tacked-on feel of a bad Hollywood ending. It would have been much more realistic if the book had ended with the episode before the epilogue. If you need to be convinced that life is a dark lonely place and that you can't depend on anyone, including your closet friends and family, this book is for you. If you need a reason to commit suicide, this book could be it. Otherwise, steer clear of the Mulvaneys.
Rating:
Summary: WE WERE THE MULVANEYS
Review: I don't know if I liked this book. I think I did. I finished it. I keep thinking about it. I want to talk to somebody else who has read it. I have so many questions about the parents. I want to understand them, especially the father. First part of book, wonderful family. Second part of book, everybody falls down a well of dysfunction. Third part of book, back to wonderful family. Why? How? This is my first book by Oates and I found it very wordy but it also held me to the page. Even though I'm in the middle of different book by a different author I find myself thinking about the Mulvaneys. I usually think that books and movies that cause me to think about them long after I've experienced them must have value. I don't know whether to recommend it to friends or not but I want them to read it so they can discuss it with me. I bet it would be a good book group read.
Rating:
Summary: A thoughtful book that requires some thinking.
Review: Good books don't necessarily lay all the answers on the table for you, nor do they wrap everything up in a neat package to fit our 30-minute TV episode life views. We Were the Mulvaneys is a difficult book to deal with at times, and I left it still examining my feelings for the characters. Isn't that what a good book should do?
Rating:
Summary: A truly terrible book
Review: I finished this book last night and I must say that I am both speechless and scratching my head in wonder. This book made absolutely no sense, never answered any of the questions that it posed, and was completely unsatisfying. In the beginning of the book there is a woman who was apparently sexually abused by a group of boys. And this is on the same night that Marianne was raped? (Or, at least I think she was raped, the book was not 100% clear on that either). The girl who was sexually abused is never mentioned again. What was her point in the story? I read through the entire book thinking that at some point there would be a "pay off." An explanation, a glimmer of understanding. Nothing! I read this book for days longer than I wanted to because I wanted to find out what was going to happen at the end. Well, guess what. *Nothing* happens. I want those days back so I can spend them reading another book! A good book. LOL. I don't want to give the ending of the book away so I will stop here. Not that there really is an "ending" in the true sense of the word. The author just got sick of writing (finally!) and gave up. Thank goodness, now I can move on to something enjoyable. This was my first book by this author, and also my last.
Rating:
Summary: American Family Saga
Review: The Mulvaneys are a close, hard working family, living in the bright glow of successes. Joyce Carol Oates draws the reader into their world with her unmatched detail, and suspense. We wonder what will happen next to these likeable family members as we turn pages, always knowing in the back of our minds that Oates will eventually lead us down a dark path and examine the human condition. The complex characters jump off the pages to become real before our eyes. We feel their joys, their hurts, their anger, and their losses. After the only daughter is attacked and her father and brothers run out of legal options for justice, all hell breaks loose as the family is splintered by events dramatized by this genius/author, Joyce Carol Oates. What a stunning read! Oates's short stories and novels leaves the reader breathless again and again. Absolutely one of the best writers of today, or any day, or night for that matter!
Rating:
Summary: Thought Provoking, Yet Wordy and Sad...
Review: I agree with many of the other reviewers. This book was compelling, thought provoking and at times interesting, but it was too long and over descriptive. All the details that were described at length were boring. I skipped over much of it. Instead, more character development would have been welcome. Oates is an amazing author and sometimes can just reach right to your heart and grab it with her writing. However, it was very hard to digest much of this book, since it centered on supposedly loving parents who turn their back on their daughter during her hour of need. That just made no sense.
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