Rating: 
Summary: I Gotta Get Me More Of Her Books
Review: It's interesting to see an Oprah book have such polarized opinions. I have read about 8 Oprah books now, and WWTM is definetely second only to The Poisonwood Bible in my estimation. Though the events of the story itself are somewhat unoriginal, the writing is unbelievable. Highly recommended! Oh, PS - it just occured to me both WWTM and TPB are about families that seem solid but fall apart under stress, mostly because the father is a jerk. I'm not sure what this says about me ....
Rating: 
Summary: Incredibly bad
Review: I am pleased to see that I as not the only one disappointed in this book choice. I have reached page 79 and have still to reach the point where my attention or imagination is caught. So far, there are many parts of the story where I get the impression that the author needs to fill up her quota of words. The many lists meant to flesh out the family and their background seem to me to be just that - lists. I am hanging in hoping to reach a point of interest. But so far the book is incredibly bad.
Rating:
Summary: Slow and drawn out....
Review: This is my first book from Oprah's Book Club, and I was very disappointed. After hearing Oprah rave about it, I felt I had to read it. But I had to force myself to finish it. I thought maybe it was just me, so I gave it to my husband to read, he felt the same way. In a conversation with my sister-in-law, she had also read it and did not like it either. We all thought it was slow, slow, slow....
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting But Tedious
Review: I just finished this book and it was a chore getting through. It took at least 100 pages for me to get interested in it and get used to Oates' writing style. The story itself was interesting and heartbreaking the way Marianne was treated by her parents. But I found Oates to be too wordy. She went into detail about every little thing and I found myself skipping paragraph after paragraph. I was not interested in what each clock in their house looked like or any of the other millions of details of objects that had little to do with the story.I also found it tedious reading a book with very little dialogue. And when there was dialogue, at times it was all contained in one huge paragraph. It was an accomplishment getting through a page due to her style of writing, even though I found the story itself to be interesting. At times it was hard to follow since she constantly went back and forth in time. I do not have any desire to read another book by Joyce Carol Oates. It's not the subject matter that I object to, it's her writing style.
Rating:
Summary: BLAH!
Review: For all the hype on this book being a #1 bestseller for several months now, I thought I would have enjoyed it more. I can't even say I would recommend it to anyone!
Rating:
Summary: Better Title: We Were Weirdos from Another Planet
Review: This book was so ridiculous and uninteresting, I couldn't even believe it. All of the characters were greatly underdeveloped, and while Oates attempted to tell this "story" from the perspective of the youngest Mulvaney, she failed terribly. This book is supposed to be the youngest boy's attempt at writing the history of his family. However, within the first twenty pages the one and only conflict for the Mulvaneys begins, yet Oates totally underdevelops everything and makes everything just plain uninteresting. There was truly nothing tragic about this book except for the fact that it was published and hyped up by Oprah to make it worse. Take my advice and do not waste any money on this book -- if you're that curious, go to the library, I'm sure they'll have a ton available.
Rating:
Summary: Don't say you haven't been warned!
Review: Words from earlier reviews like, "torturous," "boring," "depressing," are apt descriptions of this book. Was Ms Oates' editor sleeping? This book needed a half dozen more rewrites in order to sift out the nuggets of good writing that get lost in so much angst. I did not accept the complete disintegration of this family. If you must read this book, I found that reading the chapter openings and closings and skipping over the middle sections helped me follow the storyline. But once I read to the finish, I was still baffled and disappointed with "We Were the Mulvaneys."
Rating: 
Summary: If you can get past all the words, it's a good book!
Review: "Mulvaneys" is a book that sticks with you for days after you've finished it. You ask yourself, "Why didn't Corinne, the mother, ever get a job to help out when things got bad at the roofing company? Why didn't the kids?" Was it denial, stupidity or am I missing something? Mom seemed borderline delusional at times, which is what I am sure Oates intended us to think. After pondering on the book when I finished it, I realized that the Mulvaneys were no different than a lot of other American families. Although I'm not so sure I would cave to my husband's demands and exile one of my children after they suffered a trauma. I really liked the ending. It left me content to know how things worked out for them.
Rating:
Summary: Don't waste your time!
Review: I too wish I would have read the reviews of this book before purchasing it. This is the story of a happy family; Mom, Dad, 3 sons, and a daughter. They are a happy family until their daughter is raped and it tears the family apart. This story is partially told from the view of the youngest son and partially from the third person which can be confusing at times and I felt I never gained any compelling insight from the sons view so why bother? I'm sure there was major symbolism going on here but this book was so boring I didn't even bother to think about it.The characters were never fully developed so I found it hard to really like any of them and it seemed when the author did start to go into some character depth she'd go off into some small inconsequential detail that had nothing what so ever to do with the rest of the story. I have to admit this book was taking me so long to read and it was so horrible that I skimmed the last hundred or so pages just to be done with it. One major point in this book seemed to be that this family was so important; THEY WERE THE MULVANEYS. Who Cares!!!!!
Rating:
Summary: Imagination on Fire
Review: "We Were the Mulvaneys" pricked and fired up my imagination beyond belief! My hours spent with this family were some of the best. I highly recommend this as a great vacation take-along.
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