Rating: 
Summary: great novel
Review: I found this book while raiding my mother's bookshelf. When I read the back of it a chill ran down my spine. My mother told me my brother (one of three!) had picked it up for her with the "hurt" books at the local university's bookstore.
It was all very suspicious to me as it seemed to be about our family. This is the best novel about family I've ever read. It's interesting that some people find parts of it to be unbelievable when I've related to it on such a personal level.
We do the best with what we have and occasionally some of us grow up and heal our wounds. Some don't and sometimes because they are family we can find ways to have whatever kind of relationship is possible or not.
Rating: 
Summary: A little disappointed...
Review: Being a JCO fan, I cannot help but feel disappointed after reading We Were the Mulvaneys. The story chronicles the gradual degredation of a family, followed by a quick "reunion" packed into the last few pages of the book. I found the characters to be rather stereotyped and just plain annoying. Throughout the entire story, the mother Corinne claims to love her children- yet she sure doesn't show it, and her pathetic devotion to her low-life husband further reveals just how weak her character really is. I found many of the events, especially those that happened to the daughter Marianne, highly unbelievable. Marianne suffers a rape when she is 17, and it is this once incident that destroys the entire family. For the setting (New York, 1970s) it seems unlikely that a woman would be so shunned. The eldest son, Mike, is another overly-stereotyped character that is never reallly fully developed. The similarities between Mike and his father are remarkable, leaving the reader to wonder if this son, with his equally "picture perfect" life, will follow in the same footsteps as his father. I found the youngest son, Judd, to be a weak narrator. For me the character of Patrick was the high-point of the book; the only son that showed any real depth or intensity of personality. All in all I struggled to finish the book, and only managed to do so because I thought it had to get better.
Rating:
Summary: Why would anyone finish this book????
Review: Even more importantly, why did someone make a tv movie off it? This family appears to be close-knit, loving, and rich in faith but a catastrophe - when the daughter is brutally raped - tears it all apart. The father becomes hateful, abusive, and cold, the mother wrings her hands and cries but stands by and lets her daughter be victimized yet again. How can any reader have sympathy for "parents" like this who are anything but loving? This "loving" family punishes the victim. I had no sympathy whatsoever for these characters and found myself hoping the dad would get offed and mom too for her spineless lack of mothering when her child needed it most. The author's purple prose detracts from the story as well. Can't recommend this one at all.
Rating:
Summary: Rich in beautiful language
Review: Hurrah!I listened to the book on cd, and I must say, although I enjoyed it and felt the actor did a great job, I missed actually reading the language used by Oates throughout the book.
She is, apparently, a master of the written word (this is my first Oates book). It was a pleasure to read (okay, hear). I typically do not like heavy description in fiction, but I actually found myself enthralled with the scenery and characterization because it was just so enjoyable to hear the words Oates put together. If you are the type of person who gets excited over well-written sentences (a fellow former English Major or language-loving dork, like me), this is a great book for you.
Rating:
Summary: personally haunting
Review: I don't remember quite where I was or whom I was talking to when, in conversation, I recounted some troubling times in my life. Thw woman I was talking to said to me,"you should read 'we were the mulvaneys'."
I tried to make a mental note of the book title but in my haste forgot about our conversation while rushing off to do other things. Several months later, I was food shopping and as I headed down the isle of books, "we were the mulvaneys" literally dropped to the floor as I passed. Ironically, it was the last book on the shelf. As I held it in my hands, I remembered the conversation I had months back. Of course, I bought the book. (who buys books in a grocery store?) The book had so many parallels to my own life I could not believe someone had put this into words and called it "fiction". The book is beautifully written and the story is haunting and sad, and for some people like myself, very true. While WWTM has a permanent place on my bookshelf, I still cannot recall the person that day who told me to read it.
Rating: 
Summary: A new form of depressing
Review: I have to admit this is the first book I have ever read in which I felt compelled to write a review. I am an avid reader and my tastes are very eclectic so I was suprised by my emotions upon reading this book. It was the first novel of Joyce Carol Oates that I had read so I didn't really know what to expect. But I had always heard she was a very fine writer so I figured I'd give it a try. Also, I have read many of Oprah's book club selections and generally found them fine. This book is the exception. It may be the most depressing, disappointing book I have ever read. I realize its a dark subject, rape, however I didn't know it was possible to take a dark subject like this and take it to an even lower level. I found the treatment of Marianne by her parents, particularly her mother to be both unrealistic as well as borderline criminal. I realize that things like this happen in "the real world". However, this is fiction. To portray this family for the first 150 pages or so as "perfect", to show them with incredibly strong emotions and lovingness in one part of the book and to switch midstream as Oates did and not only do a 360 degree change was completely outside the realm of realism within this story. Of course I realize that parents might react as the Mulvaney's did upon the rape of their child. However, there was absolutely nothing in these parents character to suggest that this was remotely possible.When Corinne sent her supposed "beloved" daughter away, I threw the book down in disgust. Both because I felt it was a horrible betrayal by a mother but more importantly from a reviewers point of view, a betrayal by Oates of the readers. It just didn't ring true and appeared to me to be a device. I don't know how or why I finished the rest of the book, probably just to see if it could be redeemed from that point on. I shouldn't have bothered. Once the "reality" of the book is shattered you can't get it back. It set the tone and was downhill from there. This may just be the most depressing novel I have ever read.
Rating:
Summary: Rich in beautiful language
Review: I listened to the book on cd, and I must say, although I enjoyed it and felt the actor did a great job, I missed actually reading the language used by Oates throughout the book.
She is, apparently, a master of the written word (this is my first Oates book).
It was a pleasure to read (okay, hear). I typically do not like heavy description in fiction, but I actually found myself enthralled with the scenery and characterization because it was just so enjoyable to hear the words Oates put together.
If you are the type of person who gets excited over well-written sentences (a fellow former English Major or language-loving dork, like me), this is a great book for you.
Rating: 
Summary: Impenetrable -- and you don't want to break through!
Review: I started this book with high hopes, which were dashed all too soon due to impenetrable prose, thin images, and sloppy meandering. I read other reviews to learn what the title referred to because after 100 pages, it was just too much for me. Ms. Oates doubtless has earned an esteemed place in American fiction, but this book sure doesn't encourage me to read anything else to find out why.
Rating: 
Summary: Uplifting, inspiring family tale? No. But still a great read
Review: In reading some of the blurbs about this book in the first few pages and on the back cover, one is led to believe that it is an inspiring story about the power of love and the strong bonds of family. I enjoyed this book very much, but I didn't find anything terribly redemptive or inspiring about it. Aside from about the first 50 and the last 20 pages of this 450 page book, it is a sad tale of the Mulvaney family's downward spiral after something terrible happens to daughter Marianne. What I enjoyed most about the book was the author's incredible talents as a storyteller; as one review put it, it seems as though the pages we read are mirrors of real life that the author's prose so perfectly captures.
Rating:
Summary: We will always remember the Mulvaneys
Review: In the very fist line of Joyce Carol Oates's "We were the Mulvaneys" a statement and a question are made. What is stated is something that will be dealt with throughout the whole novel, but the question cannot be answered right away. However the answer will be a huge `yes' once you have finished the novel. The first line of the novel reads "We were the Mulvaneys, remember us?" By beginning with such device, Oates, skilled as she is, immediately immerses he reader in the in that family's universe. The voice of her narrator is so powerful, that from the beginning one may be afraid of saying no. This narrator is the youngest Mulvaney, Judd, who sees his family falling apart after the so-called rape of his sister. However young he is, he has such a sense of persuasion that we almost take for granted what he says. However, as the plot unfolds, one notices that he is still a child and is trying to cope with the destruction of the institution in which he trusted, which is his family. As lost as he is, he seeks for help from every member, but everyone is so immersed in his/her own problems that the boy finds no comfort. In her faulkneresk novel, Oates shows the importance of the ties that bound us together with our parents and siblings. Her plots resonates one of the best novels written in English, "The Sound and the Fury", and, although she may have been inspired by Faulkner, she still has her own talent and approach. And these qualities are what make this novel so strong and unique. There is no doubt that Oates is one of the best writers of her generation. She has a special eye for society --and what backs it up, i.e. family-- that is changing. And with "We were the Mulvaneys" she discusses pertinent subjects. Society is changing because of families --or the other way round? This is not an easy question to answer, and the novel doesn't try to. What Oates does with her powerful writing is to point out that things are changing and we can only accept it --or not.
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