Rating: 
Summary: lacked direction
Review: I had trouble figuring out where the story was going. Even up until the end I wasn't sure. It felt like the author couldn't decide which character to focus on, so she jumped around from one to another in abrupt transitions. I found the character of Marianne rather annoying. She came across as fragile and naive, a flighty and delicate thing who doesn't really understand the world and who carries the blame for everything that goes wrong in her life, including her rape. Overall, this was an okay story, but it seemed to lack direction and focus.
Rating: 
Summary: Intriguing, Yet Slow
Review: I was introduced to this book by a friend, who described it to me as this great book. Indeed, it was really good, but I found it to be a little slow at times. It had a good plot line with well detailed events, but the book could have had a lot of information deleted. I found myself skipping paragraphs, even pages at a time. I prefer to read books that have event after event and so on, but this book didn't have that kind of plot. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the book and would recommend it to others. It shares a good story of life and the tragic things that happen to the good people. Just with a lot of extra details.
Rating: 
Summary: It will break your heart
Review: I read this book over a year ago, and it still haunts me whenever I see it on my bookshelf. Maybe because the Mulvaneys are a composite of several families I knew growing up, including my own. Tragedy can have dire consequences for many people, but it can also make people stronger and give them the ability to help others in similar situations. Ms. Oates is one amazing writer.
Rating:
Summary: Not perfect, but...
Review: This isn't Oates best, or a novel which will leave you warm-hearted (All that much). But it's a good read...the second and third time around. The first time is a little tricky, but bare with it...you'll be glad you did.Dramatic, poignant, readable, intriguing...it's good, solid work.
Rating:
Summary: A book that stays with you ...
Review: Contrary to some opinions posted here in the reviews, I really liked this book. Yes, the characters are imperfect and sometimes it can be difficult to understand their motives - but then real people are just as flawed. I'm glad too - I don't want to read about perfect characters. Save those for romance novels. There are plenty of other reviews to read that tell you what the book is about, so I'll just concentrate on my opinion. This book is an excellent study of humanity's dark side - our capability for self-destruction. It's also great at showing how a family dynamic can be ripped apart by a series of mistakes. Long after I finished this book it stayed with me - the characters seemed to come alive and speak to me during the day. I kept thinking about them, and wondering what happened to them. I do wish that the ending wasn't as hurried - but then, the ending is about healing and moving on.
Rating:
Summary: Closeup of a Family Unraveling
Review: Our book club chose this book as its selection for the month, and I for one will be reading more of Joyce Carol Oates in the future after reading WE WERE THE MULVANNEYS.
Set in the idyllic upstate New York area, High Point Farm appears the rural, charming, love filled home that we all dream about. At the point in time that we are introduced, the family is healthy, pulling together, and dealing with the small issues of everyday life with humor and support to each other. Mother Corrine's strong Christian faith and her pride and love for her family provide a sturdy backdrop for her children and her husband.
But into this happy setting intrudes an ugly stranger: something irrevocable and dark has happened to sweet Marianne, and nobody seems able to talk about this openly. Marianne attempts to suffer her way quietly through this ordeal, becoming dysfunctional and uable to resume her normal activites.
What is effective to me is how each member of the family is swept up into the vortex of Marianne's rape and disgrace. All the males seem to possess rage, anger and a desire for retaliation. The women wish to deny, suffer, forgive, and move on in a different direction. I felt great empathy for the break up of this family, and grieved as they all spun off in different directions in order to deal with their issues.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing...not Oates' best by a mile
Review: Joyce Carol Oates must be one of the most prolific contemporary novelists writing today. Her "Black Waters" was a slim book but it was powerful, full of resonance and simply unforgettable. "We Were The Mulvaneys (WWTM)" is a different sort of book. It is a family drama, thrice as long but sadly lacking in qualities I would consider essential in good narrative fiction. The basic storyline pans out like bad afternoon TV soap opera. That this picture perfect upwardly mobile all-Americam family should crumble and fall apart so quickly after "the incident" is hard enough to believe. Straining credibility even further is the suddeness of decline in the Mulvaneys' economic fortunes. Worse, the poor Mulvaneys and the members of the community in which they live behave like they're in a time warp, like 50s characters resurrected for the post-Woodstock 70s. After all that, how can we like or even feel sympathy for a family who behave like creeps to one another when the chips are down ? Mike Senior, the father, is easily the family's prize creep. His banishment of poor Marianne simply because she won't testify makes him easily the most selfish, self-loving and unsympathetic member of the clan. But sadly, his action doesn't ring true and that bothers me. Corinne, the loving wife and mother, is also ultimately a poorly drawn character. How can she be the novel's Mother Earth figure when she condones her husband's decision and yet carries on like she cares. Mike Junior - the hothead - is written out of the story early. Patrick, the angry intellectual and Mum's favourite, is unfortunately too introverted to stop the rot. He too flies the coop. Judd, the baby of the family, is such a feeble narrator we almost forget he's there. He flits in and out but never makes any impression on the reader. Marianne, the victim, is also a pale cardboard like character, a defiled Desdemona figure, if you like, but completely bloodless and uninteresting. How could she even stand to be with her parents after what they did to her ? Oates clearly has problems with characterisation. But that's not all. Her less than steady hand at plot development is also manifest in the final 100 pages or so when she decides to bring this overlong and tiresome novel to a hasty close by orchestrating an instant family reunion that has an air of falseness about it. A quick but shoddy wrap-up that like feels like an after thought. I also found Oates' prose suffocatingly longwinded and manic (in parts), especially the irritating asides in italics. Sorry, WWTM isn't an Oates novel I would recommend to anyone. She has written some wonderful thing before but this isn't one of them.
Rating: 
Summary: We Were the Mulvaneys
Review: I was very dissappointed in this novel, especially the end that led you up a mountain and the dropped you instead of reaching the top. The story jumped around and was poorly written and too detailed in ways that were unnecessary.
Rating: 
Summary: Unredeeming; implausible; unjustified
Review: I keep thinking I ought to like J. C. Oates's books. I keep buying them. I keep reading them. After this one, I'm going to quit.
Unredeeming and unlikeable characters except for the rage-filled brother, the only one who sees what's happening.
Implausible plot.
Utterly unjustified, sugar-coated ending.
Waaaaaaay too long. Oates needs an editor in the worst way, someone to tell her when to STOP.
Dreadful...
I'm over it.
Rating:
Summary: Too much detail!!
Review: This was one of the worst novels I have ever read. Oates goes on and on with so much detail and jumps around so much that it is hard to stay interested. I gave up after Part I.
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