Rating: 
Summary: Don't waste your time!
Review: At first, I wished I could give this book zero stars, thinking it had absolutely nothing to offer. However, I did at one time wish to finish reading the book, just to see if it EVER got better. After almost an entire year of letting it sit on the bottom of my nightstand pile while I found other books vastly more interesting, entertaining, and rewarding, I've finally given up on finishing the last >100 pages. It's just not worth the time.
We Were the Mulvaneys is dismally depressing, without any apparent purpose. I think most people would be hard-pressed to find a single character for whom they felt any affection or lasting interest.
I think it's notable that there are nearly 800 used and new copies for sale, starting at a penny. I paid $1 for my copy at the local library sale. The book is headed back there now.
Rating: 
Summary: couldn't put this thing down
Review: this book never left my hands for four days. i'm a third-year college student and whenever i needed to study for a class or do some homework, i would choose to read this book. the mulvaneys are a nutty bunch of people that just had to crack sometime. my aunt complained that "nothing happened" in the book. rather, i say that everything happened in this book.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: Interesting subject matter, but buried in many endless chapters of monotonous rhetoric.
Rating:
Summary: A shameless depresser
Review: This was a horrible book! It was incredibly depressing, there wasn't a redeeming character to be found, and it was filled with one miserable event after another. Ultimately, the book was completely dismal and discouraging to the very end.
Rating:
Summary: pointless tearing at the heartstrings
Review: This book is like a bad soap opera. Supposedly "good" people make completely incomprehensible choices in service of a poorly thought out plot.The character of Marianne was especially laughable - all the author's effort went into trying to make us feel bad for her sob story instead of painting a believable character. Marianne is the idealized martyr: never angry at the family that inexplicably turns against her. What planet was this girl from? What planet was the father from? It is hard to believe natural selection did not do away long ago with a gene pool without any noticable coping or reality-testing skills. The sad part is that Oates is actually a good writer. I'm not sure what possessed her to write and publish this pathetic tear-jerker.
Rating: 
Summary: A Thought Provoking Novel
Review: This book was thought provoking. I definitely recommend this book to anyone who has had an event that made a "before and after" period in their life. It made me reflect on my own family history and how I have come to accept that people react to the same event in very different ways. The narrator of this book describes quite clearly how families can be changed by a single event- one that occurs all too frequently- but that single event makes all the difference. The reason I didn't give this book 5 stars is because it was too much "before" and I thought the book went on too long in the beginning. Also, I had a hard time with the authors wandering thoughts. The narrator would start off with a comment that would make me think "Aha! Now we're getting to it!" Then they would go off in acompletely different direction, only to come back to it briefly at the end of the chapter. Very annoying! Still, if I skimmed the parts that didn't interest me, about 1/2 way through the book I was hooked!
Rating:
Summary: Flaws Abound
Review: Oates creates a family where the wrong people are supported, potential is crushed, the foolish in heart roam without thought of the harm they inflict on others. All of the complexities flow back to the main theme of the book; that the father must be shielded from the indelibale truth that he cannot protect his daughter from a horrible event. The rape that takes place is a violation of each element of the Mulvaney family, and each person in the household accquiesses to the mothers plea for the father's life to be restored to normality.
All throughout this book, I wanted to scream, shout and claw my way into Oates' world, as the Mulvaneys problems seem so simple to fix. But the simplest solutions are never followed in this tragedy, and the theme of coming home becomes a rendevous with the mistakes of the past... and for the Mulvaneys, they are too bitter to contemplate.
Buy this Book.
Rating: 
Summary: We Were the Mulvaneys
Review: Overall I felt the book was well written, however overly detailed. At times I felt like I was struggeling just to get to the next page due to an excessive amount of detail. When I finally finished the book, I enjoyed the overall story but some of the flowery language could have been ommitted.
Rating:
Summary: repulsive
Review: all the bad reviews here echo my thoughts on the writing, character development, plot, narration, etc. this is also my first oates book & i found it so thoroughly unpleasent that i've decided it will be my last. the character development was horrendous, but just let me add my 2cents in here: i found it really sickening how the author portrayed the female characters in this book. she wanted you to feel some sympathy for corrine & marrianne but they were so utterly grotesque in their protrayals, it makes me wonder if this author is 100% mentally all there herself. the mother was from the outset really irritatingly annoying & shallow, never got better, never achieved insight or redempton, nothing, nada... the [attack] vitim was a caraciture of a "solied" girl turned martyred saint who accepts the responsiblity FOR the [attack], for every horrible thing ever done to her a we are supposed to think that she is "good girl" horribly wronged, ... with mental problems---she comes off across as less of a human being than i have EVER read in any book--and without proper reasoning,as if we are just to believe that her being a devout Christian is the only reason for this. her character borders on complete idiocy; you cannot help but be revolted by her --NOT the [attack]--which by the way, & i find this horribly disturbing---is never explained totally AS [an attack]!
the author puts some doubt in the text to suggest that it may have not been [an attack]--which is really something when you go on to consider how she describes marriane as a person w/ classical post-traumatic stress disorder, who in the examinatng room has torn genitals & bruises (& even explained as to be caused from where the [attacker] was 'thrusting' upon her...), who describes the [attacker] as using violent language & swearing at her during the [attack], ..but...amazingly, we are supposed to hold a thread of doubt as to if it really was [an attack]....HUH?!? or to believe that marrianne has complete & immediate sympathy for the boy who [attacked] her?! like , it would be OK w/ Jesus, maybe, (..& after all, she had been drinking, so she 'deserved' to be attacked, ripped, ... ...????!)...so that's her reaction..?!!! NOT that she would be concerned at all that a predatory boy like that would [attack] again? maybe even one of her classmates???
if she had JUST been drinking & blacked out & woke up raped, that'd be more plausible, that she didnt know what went on, but, HELLO?, she, her character & the 3rd person narrator TELL us all this other information, & STILL the author wants to put 'doubt' in our minds about it or to have marriane doubt herself about it being a rape! this story was deeply offensive & not less so in describing the male charaters. the father charater is just a bloody mess, he's thrown out of character at us so violently in a 180 degree turn (&good old mom, too)
...but here im thinking abt the brothers.
they really dont seem to care at all when the [attack] happens. there's no feeling at all for their sister, they accept her banishment, too , without a word, like she didn't matter. only later does patrick develop a selfish sense of justice he wants to avenge, which didnt have much, again, to do with any love he really felt for his sister.
in real life, the Mule character would've at least kicked someone's [butt] if HE felt so slighted, i mean it is high school & he is a dumb jock. there was the tiniest glimmer that in dealing with the males , the author would've explored the way men are 'naturally' inclined to being sexually predatory & how that, those feelings & actions, would have colored how they reacted to the rape & in their own lives..THAT would have been interesting, if it was done in a delicate & realistic manner, which this author seems woefully inadequate to handle, based on this book , in which all the charaters are so unbelievable & selfish & utterly unknowing about love or compassion, empathy or understanding.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent novel about Family!
Review: "We Were the Mulvaneys",written by Joyce Carol Oates, is a warm, sincere, realistic book about family! Joyce Carol Oates has such a pragmatic and vivid style of writing that one is almost capable of feeling the emotions experienced by every character. You begin to comprehend their hopes, dreams, and fears with each word. One is actually capable of visualizing everything, from "High Point Farm", to the "fireflies in the snow storm"!
The fact is, this is a fictional story that could very well be a story of many families that use the only coping skills that they know, especially when it comes down to a crisis with one of their own. Although the book seems to be rather slow at times, and very long, after reading, I feel that every word and chapter was required to recognize the full sense of family in this situation.
According to the publisher, Joyce Carol Oates had at that time written 27 Novels, plus collections of poems, plays, and short stories. She was also the Roger S.Berlind Distinguished Professor of Humanities at Princeton University. After reading this book, I would be happy to read any of her work!
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