She's Come Undone

Rating:
Summary: Dolores Price lingers long after the last page.
Review:

I first read "She's Come Undone" almost four years ago and have re-read the book over a dozen times.

Wally Lamb's debut novel is one of the most captivating books I have read during my lifetime of voracious reading. Moving, nostalgic, funny, it is a window into the pain that everyone must go through to ultimately come into their own.

Dolores Price is one of the most authentic characters I've come across in quite some time. She becomes real to the reader, and it is likely that almost every woman can relate to her on some level, be it through the pain of sexual abuse, weight related issues, or simply feeling like a stranger in your own skin. The reader partners with Dolores throughout the torture and triumph in her challenging life.

I came away from this book feeling as though I know Dolores as well as the people in my own life. The people in Dolores' life ring true, each with their own issues, flaws and strengths.

This work has lingered with me (obviously, as I've re-read it so much) and I have recommended it to everyone I know, with great results.

I eagerly await Lamb's next book, my only regret being that it won't be a continuation of Dolores' story.

Read it, you will never forget it.

Rating:
Summary: Distasteful.
Review: My husband's cousin loaned me this book while the family was on a cruise together celebrating my mother-in-law's 60th birthday. I had already gone through my stack of reading material and looked forward to this book, which I had considered purchasing, but which hadn't made the final cut. Overall I found it distasteful. The characters were unsympathetic. The situations were unrealistic. The only deep feeling this book invoked was disgust. Why be miserable ? Avoid this book.

Rating:
Summary: He's Come Undone
Review: As one of Mr. Lamb's former students in his early days of teaching, I just couldn't wait to read his debut novel. It was a book that was as cliche and nostalgic as he was as a teacher. It read like one of his lessons in creative writing, using poetry and song as a backdrop for setting, plot, outcome. All very cute, somewhat juvenile and sophomoric. Please, Mr. Lamb, don't try out your female voice on us again, male perspective cannot be masked. Sometimes you were as unfeeling as Dolores, how could you not be sensitive to the plight of a young person in trouble? Mental illness should never be made humorous.

Rating:
Summary: For me, this book is a "keeper"
Review: I absolutely love this book! Tried to make it last longer, but I couldn't put it down... Delores Price may not be "likeable", but she is believeable, especially by anyone who has ever used food as an anesthetic. Since when do you have to "like" a character for the story to be good literature?? I will treasure this book forever, and read it several more times throughout my life for inspiration. When it was finished, I felt as though I was holding my breath for days. Didn't even have any desire to start another book for about a week, because there was no way I could possibly be lucky enough to be so completely fulfilled by two books in a row! Thank you Wally Lamb. I will be anxiously awaiting your next effort....

Rating:
Summary: a painful and ultimately joyous page turner.
Review: From the second page when protaganist claims her earliest memory - getting a television set from her father's lover - is like television itself, sharp and clear and reliable, I sympathized with sensitive, stunted Dolores Price. As her bravado and vulnerabilities grew, I saw myself in her and cheered and understood. A beautiful moving, amusing read.

Rating:
Summary: I loved it!!!
Review: This was one of those book's you just can't put down. Doleres is me she's you she's your bestfriend. Every page kept me wanting more. She is beautiful inside and out. I need more like this one.

Rating:
Summary: Truly A Modern Day Hemmingway
Review: "She's Come Undone" is truly a masterpeice in a world full of trashy sex filled novels. I bought this book based soley on Oprah's recomendation and have since baught a copy for every member of my family for this Christmas (28 copies). I did this because I know that every one that reads this book and enjoys it, can find something that really strikes them as personal. Wally Lamb truly knows how to strike a reader's imagination and run away with it. It was obvious that his did. THis is the best work of fiction I have ever read, and highly recomend it to any one that has an open mind, an open heart, and is ready to come undone... [e-mail]

Rating:
Summary: Why so much fuss?
Review: I have mixed feelings about this book. My first language being French, I hadn't realized Wally Lamb was a man when I ordered the book through Amazon. However, even without the picture on the back cover, I would have soon found out.

I was raped a few years ago. Although every womyn who has lived through this shocking horror has done it in a different way, I can not believe that any of them really lived it even a little bit like Dolores Price. It is not the eating-up part that bugged me, it is more like the total absence of feelings towards the rape that rendered me unable to believe her story. And it is the fact that the rape was used only as a twist to bring the story somewhere that sold Wally Lamb's gender to me. This was quite unnerving.

A writer myself, I have seen one of my books rejected because it presented too many coincidences and thus rendered it less believable. I don't believe that Lamb's editor is as efficient as mine. This whole story is just a chain of related events, up to the end, when Dolores Price is the only one to see a whale on a no-whale day.

The other thing I didn't like about this book is that the womyn portrayed in it are all nuts: the main character, the mother, the old mistress who drinks beer, the grandmother, the tatoo parlor womyn, the old chinese wannabe... or they are all bitches: the girls at school, the teachers, the home attendee... Else, they are lesbians or just plain stupid. The man, on the other hand, are either loving (I've never thought I'd one day read a book where I liked the rapist more that the girl who was raped, but this is it!!!), always handsome, always there for you. Of course, some of them turn out to be real jerks, but basically they remain likeable even in their worst moments.

As for the abortion stuff, I certainly didn't like the Pro-Life line adopted by Wally Lamb, but when it popped out by the end of the book, I was definetly not surprised.

I still give a 4 to this book because I thought it was a good light reading, ideal for the bus ride to work.

And for those critics who compared Lamb's writing to those of Marilyn French and Margaret Atwood, I have only one thing to say: please, do not insult these two REALLY great authors!

Rating:
Summary: everyone will see themselves some where in this book!
Review: A heartbreakingly real but mystical book about one girl's life that speaks to all of it's readers about their lives and perspectives. I laughed and cried....everyone who reads this book may not love it but, they will find themselves somewhere in this extra ordinary story. I have never heard of Wally Lamb before, but can't wait to read more!

Rating:
Summary: HONEST APPROACH TO DELORE
Review: I remember reading it and being bent that two words and a period are used as sentences. The flying leg kept getting on my nerves. I didn't get the fact this FAT girl has a gorgeous husband and a cute blond teacher wanted her back then. There are funny phrases like "flipper ear" and "what was the rest of it..jumping jacks". I never forget "HoneyDew". I hated the fact they rushed thru the last half of the book being friends with that gay guy. She didn't even get to know her, all she wanted was satelite TV and a thin body. I laughed about "cracking up in a Burger King" and how she runs aways from problems when she should be doing situps was disconcerning. I thought the book was good but I quickly forget as Oprah did. Her Mom was thin and the upstairs blond rushes off in the middle of the night..puleez. that sucked.