Rating: 
Summary: Best book I've ever read!
Review: This is, so far, *the* best book I have ever read!I'm mainly a non-fiction fan, but this one does, as another review stated 'suck you in'....mainly because of the 'flawed' characters, who are so incredibly believable.....as though they're our own family members, friends or neighbors.
It truly seems as though you're reading a true story from the heart of one man. There are a few books that can literally make you cry....this is one of those books.
Rating: 
Summary: Get a Prozac prescription before reading
Review: Although providing readers with a vivid, imaginative and poignant narrative - a more depressing story could not have been written in recent times..
Lamb's story introduces us to characters who suffer abuse, personal failure, rape, self mutilation, violence, loss of family, death of a child, paranoia, child abuse, molestation, divorce, loss of parents, murder, racism, discrimination and adultery.
A gripping story that I couldn't put down from beginning to end, but I then had to watch back to back episodes of I LOve Lucy to recover.
Rating:
Summary: A real page-turner!
Review: From Page 1, I couldn't put it down! It's nearly 1000 pages long, but a quick read. Very heartwarming. You'll actually feel all the emotions of the characters, and come away loving even those that you thought you would hate. Read it!
Rating:
Summary: Best book i've read in a long time
Review: This book was wonderful, interesting, and I could absolutely not put it down. I definitely recommend it as well as his other novel, She's Come Undone, which I also loved. He's an awesome author.
Rating:
Summary: WOW!! An Emotional Masterpiece
Review: I was very skeptic of reading this book at first due to the size of it. A 902-page book is definitely not a weekend read. This book will floor you. I found myself gasping at the words on the page. I cried. I laughed. While I was reading this book I felt as though I was among the pages with the characters. Mr. Lamb has such a marvelous way of revealing his passion.
I am still taken back by the love that evolved by the end of this book and has made me re-evaluate my own family life. Truly a MUST READ!
Rating:
Summary: great book - funny and sad
Review: I really liked this book. It was long, but a real page turner never the less. I liked She's Come Undone more because it was funnier whereas this book is darker and deals with more serious issues like schizophrenia. Wally Lamb is a very talented writer and this is one of the better books in Oprah's Book Club which has a lot of stinkers like Ellen Foster and Open House.
Rating: 
Summary: A revealing peek into the tenacious human psyche
Review: Ok so don't get scared by the "Oprah book club" sticker on the front of this. My close friend begged me to read it and I was so glad I listened. This book is multi-layered but it's not difficult to follow, which is a marvel considering how deeply it actually delves into human nature. I'll give you the basic premise, a difficult patch in the life of the main character is recounted, and on the way we learn more and more about his past and his family, including his cripplingly shy mother, his sadistic grandfather and his schitzophrenic twin brother. It might sound a bit like day time TV but it manages to avoid the trap of fictional absurdity that so many "uplifting stories about life" fall into. In fact that's what got me about this book, everything in it was so realistic, there was a definate ring of truth. There were honestly moments in this book that were so painful to read they had me catching my breath, but it's not really a weepy sort of novel, it's not there to make you cry, it's there to make you think, and this book had me thinking alot about the reasons that people must suffer. I feel this book gave some measure of an answer, that we must suffer so that we can learn and grow, and when I finished I felt uplifted rather than depressed despite the extremely tragic nature of many aspects of the story. None of the characters are terribly likeable or admirable, but somehow the author has us caring for them terribly by the end. The one example I will note is the main character's grandfather, a selfish, abusive and controlling man who we learn about through his self glorifying journals. By the end of the book it felt as though I had travelled beside him through his life's journey and learnt all the lessons he did not, which left me asking myself, what life lessons are staring me in the face right now? Anyway it's not for everyone, but I recomend it to anyone who feels a bit disparaged about life, it mightn't make you feel better but it reminds you that you're not alone in wading your way through the human condition.
Rating:
Summary: A heart wrenching, life-affirming masterpiece
Review: When I first heard about I KNOW THIS MUCH IS TRUE on Oprah a couple of years ago I avoided it for two reasons, the latter being the important one. I knew all too well much of the subject matter, as it affected someone in my family as close to me as the fictional character's brother was to him. But when I finished reading this literally 900-page novel a week ago, all I could think was that its cental flaw was that IT WAS TOO SHORT. Wally Lamb, a genius of a novelist, has written a momument to love, healing, self-awareness and the human spirit that has only been equalled, I can only guess, by some of the best work of the 20th century--including Joyce, Melville, Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison and Hemingway. I cannot imagine anything ever written short of the world's religious texts surpassing this. The central story is of a man named Thomas Birdsey and his struggle to answer with honor the Biblical question Cain asked God, "Am I my brother's keeper?," by taking care of his schizophrenic twin, and his own struggle against the dying of the light of his own sanity in the process. Lamb manages to teach more lessons about the nature of life, family, power, abuse, pain, wounds, healing, forgiveness, spirit, love and epiphany through the flowering of Thomas' consciousness in this novel--not to mention the architectue of schizophrenia itself, and how it serves as the ideal albeit frightening metaphor for our entire Age--than any DOZEN self-help books, tear-jerker movies and trips to Church or the therapist that I could ever think of. Lamb does not tear apart the the fabric of modern life or maliciously diagnose the diseases affecting it for the manipulative purpose of creating characters and a convincing storyline. He sings modern life. He creates a symphony with modern life. And in so doing he bears a human soul more true and more consistently than most real people are capable of bearing to the most intimate among us in a lifetime. The family and friends and even strangers in this novel became family and friends and meaningful people to me; so much so that after 900 pages I still didn't want the book to end, even when it did so nearly perfectly. In other words, Wally Lamb with I KNOW THIS MUCH IS TRUE places the novel, the entire art form that is the modern novel, back into its proper place as part of the healing art of mythic sorytelling, in a way that has to be read to be imagined or believed. I sat with this book ready to embrace a fairly good story and fairly good writing. I found myself turning pages uncontrollably and wiping tears as several of the chapters ended and whole new chapters of a human life began. A book I subconsciously gave myself a month or so to get through became the book I read in a little more than a week, wishing there was more. This is a masterfully constructed piece of craftsmanship given life by the heart of a Shaman, in love with life. Read this book regardless of your background and be changed--for the better. The tired old cliches have finally been given a book that gives them new life: I laughed, I cried; I couldn't put it down.
Rating:
Summary: Loved it!
Review: This is one of the best books I've read in a long time. I picked it up in the bookstore, since I had read Wally Lamb's previous book, and after reading just the first page, I couldn't put it down. Despite it's size (over 800 pages) I carried it every day on my commute and found a quiet place to set at lunch so I could continue reading. Great summer reading and well worth carrying on vacation.
Rating:
Summary: Lamb Does It Again(A 4.5 on a scale of 1 to 5)
Review: Whoa. Wally Lamb has done it again. He undid me with his first book, "She's Come Undone." I could not believe that a man could write so persuasively from the vantage point of a woman, an obese, sexually abused one at that.
In this book, he narrates from the vantage point of a man, but one with an almost unimaginable life. Our narrator has an identical schizophrenic twin, a mother who died of breast cancer, an abusive step-father, a father he never know (the twins were born out of wedlock), a four-week old daughter who died of SIDS, a best friend who serially cheats on his wife, a girlfriend who shoplifts, and an ex-wife whom he stills love but who lives with another man. You learn all of this in the first few chapters-and there's still another 850 pages of trauma to go! Lamb's story begins with a harrowing incident: Thomas, the twin brother of the narrator, cuts his hand off in a library as a protest to the Gulf War. The book tells of the incarceration of Thomas and his twin's efforts to come to terms with his illness, his life, and their shared family during this period. The book is long, too long at times (I like long books but I felt some of this could have been pared)-but it still draws you in. A 900 page book can't be a page turner...actually, yes it can, with Lamb as the author. I would recommend this book to those individuals who like gritty, gutsy contemporary fiction. I would caution individuals who need some lighter shades in their reading palette that this is not always a comfortable read. Lamb writes raw. His characters live troubled, tumultuous lives. Brutality and evil appear throughout the book. If you like tough topics, you'll like this book. If you don't, perhaps you should look elsewhere.
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