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Summary: Losers of the Junior League and their Lost Husbands
Review: What a wonderful and restrained depiction of suburban hypocrisy, self-delusion, and maddening frustration. The characters are comical, tragic, pathetic, and as close as you and me. This book reads like an intimate peek inside the empty heads of all those fellow suburbanites we see at the park, all those folks we really don't want to get to know because they are no one's heroes or role models. The GAP-clad dads and aerobic&yoga moms crowd may be an easy target, but Perrotta has his sights set on them with a joyous, and nearly sadistic, piercing eye. He revels in their petty problems and he views them with an embarrassingly self-observant perspective. By turns funny and disturbing, this absorbing tale has us fascinated because it gives us so much insight into our friends and neighbors, and dare I say it, ourselves. If Rick Moody captured the deluded 70s suburb parents with his classic Ice Storm (don't miss the movie), Perrotta does it in spades with his sad, understated tale of our current friends at the playground and preschool.
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Summary: Finally
Review: Finally, a book that is easy to read, enjoyable, has a plot, and actually ends better than it began. So many times these hyped novels don't deserve the praise they've gotten, but this one does. The most amazing thing about it is Perrotta's ability to draw us characters that are both likable and horrible. What a well-drawn portrait of dysfunction this book is. Also recommended: McCrae's The Bark of the Dogwood
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Summary: Worth the read
Review: Tom Perrotta continues to write a well characterized novel in Little Children. I read it quickly but I felt like I knew every character. The story moves and retains your interest without seeming rushed. If you like Nick Hornby or Perrotta's other books, you'll find it worth your time (and money).
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Summary: Poignant and powerful look at modern suburbia.
Review: In Tom Perrotta's latest novel, "Little Children," the author focuses his microscope on the marital problems of suburban mothers and fathers with young children. Thirty-year-old Todd is a former jock and a blonde hunk dubbed "The Prom King" by the playground mothers. He is a stay-at-home dad who takes care of three-year-old Aaron while his gorgeous wife, Karen, works as a documentary filmmaker. Todd has failed the bar exam twice, as his wife reminds him repeatedly, and his prospects of ever becoming the family breadwinner seem dim. Sarah is a college graduate who is stagnating mentally as a stay-at-home mom. Her marriage to her businessman husband, Richard, is in the doldrums. The other playground mothers watch in horror as Sarah strides up to Todd one day and kisses him the first time that they meet. Sarah arranges to "bump into" Todd and the two forge a strong bond that threatens their fragile marriages. The characters in this book are out of touch with their spouses, themselves, and, at times, with reality. Although Perrotta's writing is often humorous, this book is not merely a lighthearted satire of suburban mores and modern marriage. There is much ugliness here, mostly centered on the townspeople's horrified reaction when a convicted sex offender moves in with his mother after a stint in prison. One bitter retired ex-cop named Larry engages in a personal vendetta to harass the ex-con and his aged mother. Todd goes along for the ride, and although he verbally protests, he never makes much of an effort to stop Larry from committing his horrible deeds. "Little Children" is a brilliant and merciless look at the sterility of suburbia and at the dark emotions that threaten the characters' placid and predictable lives. Most of the individuals in this novel are hypocritical, selfish, and immature. Nevertheless, Perrotta is such a gifted writer that he humanizes the characters and makes us care deeply about them. The author implies that even when we grow up and become parents ourselves, in some ways we all remain "little children" inside.
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Summary: Is this what constitutes fast-reading literature?
Review: I love books full of intellignet insights to the 21st century human condition... so long as they aren't written by people who are trying so damn hard to be GREAT writers. Mr. Perrotta just so happens to be a damn fine writer who never once tries to show off. Somehow, in the span of 350 pages, this novel deals with marriage, parenthood, children, sexuality, infidelity, financial realities, artistic and regular careers, lost childhoods, aging parents and declining health, vanity, sagging Catholicism, Internet porn, stay-at-home moms and dads, the fragile suburban community structure, and the deviant and mundane passage of another summer. What this novel shows is that none of the people around you, not the career fast-trackers, not the artistically inclined and accomplished, not the ruggedly handsome nor the practiced beautiful, are leading perfect lives. It's brilliant how we come to understand that the ugly-duckling and the swan, the upper-middle class and the middle middle-class, envy each other while harboring identical insecurities. I can't remember a novel so full of fascinating characters, good and bad, flawed and tragically funny, heart-achingly human, every single one of them. And if the saying, "the easier the read, the harder to write" is true, then Mr. Perrotta is a genius. This book sails along better than the latest John Grisham (which by the way just sucks) and yet it's full of insights, depth, honesty, moments of coveted elation and great sadness. I went to school with these people, I know these people and I saw myself in these pages. As a man, 31 years old, married to a wonderful woman for 5 years, and flirting with first-time parenthood, I couldn't help feeling as if some of my most private thoughts were plucked directly from my brain and laced throughout this fine story. This is the kind of book that will send you flying off into startlingly clear reflections about how you got to this point in your life and where you are headed. It's rewarding if not always comfortable-- especially if you're honest with yourself. And yet, finishing the book, I felt a great sense of relief, the kind you have when you realize you're not the only person (or couple) in the world who longs for a return to innocence while the world around you grows darker every day. The only other author I have read who possesses the ability to render every single scene so compelling and fresh is Colin Harrison, possibly the bigger, wilder, and more violent urban older brother to Mr. Perrotta's suburban (but no less authoritive) sharp-eyed and quick-tongued bard. Consider just one of the challenges he sets for himself-- to take on a character who is a convicted child molester and not resort to the stereotypes of tabloid monster or fallen saint, but to paint a man who is guilty and not getting any better, yet utterly human. You will never guess where this book is going to take you, and why would you even try? There are too many masterful depictions of the human animal gone astray here to worry about the climax (which in itself manages to be at once more mundane and majestic than you will expect). And oddly, among all the hilarious scenes involving sex and anger and sadness, it's the quiet scenes involving another 30 something man, watching a group of skateboarding teens whittle away their youth, that will stay with me for months and maybe years to come. The only reason this book did not get a 5 star rating from me is... oh, ..., I convinced myself, I'm changing my rating from 4 to 5 stars. There's precious little else being published these days that even comes close.
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Summary: not a ba summertime read
Review: my girlfriend picked up a copy of Little Children on our way through o'hare this weekend. it's the story of several suburban couples as they struggle to deal with aging (well, as much as you age from college until your early 30's, along with the normal fears of life in general) and their lives. at this time a convicted child molester moves to the neighborhood, and he's a pivotal point for some of the book's events. in some ways this is akin to the scenario if faulkner's "a light in august", in the similarity of a single character's entrance acting as the catalyst in the story. at some points you feel for the characters, and in others you detest them or don't much care about them. however, perrotta efficiently and effectively creates a world which i found i could easily slip into as i read the story. the story moves at a decent pace, and you find it easy to keep turning the page. before i knew it the story was over, it had a somewhat predictable ending, but all the same it was enjoyable. not a bad summertime read. perrotta explores similar themes as he has before: affairs, shells of marriage, and bittersweet endings. the book doesn't explore the anxiety of 30-something life as well as it could, nor does it really explore the effect of suburbia on people as much as it could, as well. it's definitely more popular, and not nearly as edgey as others (ie a.m. homes) can be with the same subject, and i don't agree with some reviewers who say that this book is a masterpiece on these subjects. it is, however, a pretty good read and reccomended.
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Summary: Suburban Satire
Review: Modern marriage and suburbia are thrown on the barbeque and thoroughly cooked in this dark, biting and witty satire. I remember when I was young my Mother once telling me, "No one has the Norman Rockwell family", and that statement is all in evidence here. There's Todd, the once golden boy quarterback struggling to pass his bar exam and playing Mr Mom, while his wife tries to make ends meet. He meets Sarah one day at the playground who has her own problems in the marriage department since her husband is falling for an internet exhibitionist. Throw into the mix a recently released child molester, and you have the makings of some uncomfortable chuckles at the very least. The book feels painfully accurate in its portrayal of disappointment and disenchantment so many of these characters feel in the daily grinds of their lives. And it's their almost obsessive pursuits to capture a fleeting bit of what they think can bring them happiness that makes it both painful and funny at the same time.
Rating: 
Summary: too thin
Review: Mr. Perrotta writes well, but he's not T.C. Boyle, whom I think would've handled this material with more edge. Too often the author here assumes the reader will share his contempt for the characters without more dramatically showing why. I can't help noticing here a whiff of the creative writing class at work. The sameness of style that comes out of graduates of writing programs these days is depressing, especially the ubiquitous but apparently fashionable loathing one is supposed to have for middle class Americans. Mr. Perrotta has it in spades. The character of Sarah is well drawn, but the rest of the cast is just too thin. Larry the cop (with a stale back story right out of 'Die Hard') and Todd's wife, who supposedly makes documentary films--but in neither case does Mr. Perrotta succeed in painting real people. Todd's wife never says a word about her crew, her budget, or her equipment. Add to this the rather contrived attempt to create suspense at the end with poor Ronnie the child killer and you have an unsatisying read.
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Summary: Terrific Story!
Review: This book truly illustrates the great time in life of young adulthood. Although the characters had married and become parents, they had not actually developed the adult maturity to deal with their stations in situations and mature relationships. The use of metaphors such as with the playground as the introduction to kid's social interactions, was pivotal in the adult's interpersonal relationships, too. I loved the pacing of the story. It kept you wondering where it was going at times. The story was quite suspenseful in that way and I could not put it down!
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Summary: Terrific: Here's Why
Review: This time around, Perrotta takes satirical aim at the stifling confinement of suburban middle-class existence. To a man, his characters are lost, utterly bewildered as to how they've landed in their unremarkable lives, saddled with spouses and mortgages and children. Having drifted, almost involuntarily, into adulthood, they suddenly snap awake, and begin a dismayed accounting of their lives, all facing the same choice: do they resign themselves to the lifelong tedium of the roles outlined for them by society, or risk the censure of family and friends by abandoning the façade of responsible adulthood and striking out alone after individual happiness? Perrotta's characters are likable and, on a modest scale, tragic; from Sarah's halfhearted forays into being a strong-minded, independent feminist to Mary Ann's hard-won Martha Stewart perfection, their very natures are what will dictate the course of their lives and their inevitable discontent. Little Children is certainly a pleasure to read, with all of the sly humor and deft observation that Perrotta does so well. Whether it's the subtle jockeying for power among playground mothers, or the threadbare, joyless sexual relationship between long-married spouses, his prose is sparkling and clever. Surrounded by abundance and prosperity, free from any real hardship, the characters must invent reasons to be unhappy in order to give their lives dramatic shape; deliberating over which playground to take their children to, or which fruit juice is really the healthiest, only points up the futility and insignificance of their existence. There's plenty of inherent irony in the self-important, status-obsessed suburban lifestyle, and Perrotta mines it to the fullest - if you didn't know better, you might think the author himself had done time among backyard BBQs and afternoon play dates. This is a terrific read -- don't hesitate to pick up a copy! Another Amazon quick-pick recommendation is THE LOSERS CLUB by Richard Perez
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