Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful...
Review: It is a beautiful story of brotherhood,friendship and the hardships of life. A true story of pain and pleasure. Forces you to look at yourself and take things into perspective. An true eye opener!
Rating:
Summary: Simply Outstanding
Review: To put it simply, this book has to be one of the best books I have ever read. The prose, the description, the characters...The book practically plays out like a movie in your head as you read it, the description is so wonderful. The characters suck you in; you love or you hate them wholeheartedly by the end of the book. The story is so intricate, so detailed, that with every page turned comes a surprise. I myself became so enthralled by the book that the 900 or so pages flew by in a blur. In fact, I was upset to find when, near the end of the book, I had only twenty pages left. I wouldn't have minded for Mr. Lamb to have continued the book far beyond the 900 pages. It is truly one of the most superb books I have ever held in my hands; No novel that I've read since has been able to live up to the expectations set by Wally Lamb and this emotional (I cried), humorous (I laughed) and touching (I still think about the characters and the book) story about a very real man and his very real troubles.
Rating:
Summary: Why complain about length?
Review: I have just finished I Know This Much is True and like many other writers of these reviews, agree that it is one of the best books I've ever read. As a psychiatric nurse, I have to say that his writing was as powerful and intense as real life; and as a sister/sibling, his descriptions of familial love, obligation and hatred, rang truer than most. The book's length is part of it's magic; doesn't one read to immerse oneself in a different reality, to understand something one has not understood before? Change takes time, not sound-bytes. So I am amazed at the writers who complain the book was too long. As a home-school teacher I also wanted to encourage my teenage son NOT to be intimidated by things that took "too long", that a thousand page book just might have more to say than a half-hour tv show, you know?
Rating:
Summary: Depth was amazing
Review: So many people can relate to keeping emotions and feelings to themselves, particularly when it relates to one's relatives. This book deals with an adult male unable to confront his negative and positive emotions regarding his mother, step-father and twin brother until it is apparently too late. Not only provides a fabulously interesting read, the color and depth of the story touched me. I certainly felt a part of Thomas' life, being. Moreover, I related on a profound level to the struggle the main character had with coming to terms with who he is in relation to his family. A great look into the life, thoughts and feelings of an all-too normal person. Made me laugh, cry and emote more than a book has in quite some time.
Rating: 
Summary: Mr. Lamb is gifted, but ignorant about rape
Review: I loved this book. It is a fantastic read. However, I have seen too many of my friends lives devastated by rape to give the book 5 stars. Tucked into this 900 page book, Mr. Lamb throws in a page or two in which he makes the protaganist, Dominick, a rapist.This hideous crime, which in reality causes so much destruction, has no apparent effect on Dominick's victim or on their relationship.The rape is treated about as seriously as a sneeze. I love too many people who've been hurt too badly to accept this kind of ignorance in such a popular book.Mr Lamb has perpetuated the idea that rape is no big deal, and that rapists aren't such bad guys after all.
Rating:
Summary: Can't get it out of my head
Review: I had a hard time getting into this book because it is almost 900 pages. Who has time for 900 pages these days? It seemed so disturbing and slow at the beginning. However, thing have changed drastically and now I can't stop thinking about these characters and their stories. Wally Lamb is a fantastic writer. He does a great job of making me feel like I'm right there, like I know these characters. Be warned, parts are not for the faint hearted but so much of this book is so wonderful that it is well worth the read! I am only half way through and I can't wait to keep on reading this book. I only wonder now about what I will do with my time once I have finished this fabulous novel. Maybe Wally Lamb can write a third book?
Rating:
Summary: The ending killed it.
Review: Although a long-standing tradition in poetry, the truly Confessional straight male voice has not really made itself known in contemporary fiction (in spite how much certain authors have claimed to be doing just that) -- by that I mean a voice that decodes and records, rather than cuts through, its own inherent static. Lamb accomplishes that here more admirably and with far greater depth than, say, Nick Hornby did in "High Fidelity" -- and we ought to be grateful to him for it, for getting that internal witness down on paper in detail as exacting as he has -- but I can only only give this book 3 or maybe 3.5 stars -- the ending is atrocious. To string the reader on for so long with a minutially realist narrative, only to then attempt to resolve and wrap up every single tiny plot element into that Disneyfied fruit basket of a failed-imitation-of-John-Irving-imitating-Charles-Dickens ending -- the only thing that might conceivably be MORE nauseating would be if Robin Williams were to play Dominic in the film adaption. And now I've gone and made myself sick. With 20/20 hindsight (or is that hind-cholic) I'd say: tear the last 10 or 15 pages out of the book, place them in the trash, and then read the new edition of "I Know This Much Is True" which you have succeeeded in creating. Read it all the way through to where you tore the pages out, and then just let Dominic walk on ahead into the great unknown of his fortune, be it good or ill -- invent your own ending for him: no matter what you come up with, I guarantee you, it'll be far, far more satisfying than Wally Lamb's ending.
Rating:
Summary: The best book I have read in a long time
Review: What can I say I loved this book. I felt for all the characters. I could not put it down, although it was a large book the time went so quickly and it was so sad when it ended. I found it spoiled me for another book for quite a while.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic!
Review: I shouldn't be writing a review yet as I have only completed half of this book but when I noticed today that I'd finished half already I was amazed! I'm getting thru it so fast because it is such a page-turner. I hate to put it down. I've already recommended it to so many people that I thought I'd better check out the reviews here to see if many other people liked it as much as I do before I recommend it to even more people! I'm happy to see that many others DO like it too. I've put it down for a couple of hours now so that I won't get a headache from reading too long, and to take care of my child! I love this book! HJK
Rating:
Summary: A Fine Read
Review: I don't read much fiction, but a good friend recommended this book so enthusiastically that I couldn't resist it. I'm glad that I didn't. It's absorbing, moving, and thoughtful. With no experience with, or knowledge of, mental illness, I can't vouch for the veracity of Lamb's portrayal of either Thomas Birdsey's illness or of the manner in which mental-health authorities and physicians deal with such illnesses (and with the families of the mentally ill). But Lamb's portrayal of these matters certainly is plausible. I've only one, small nit to pick: in his acknowledgements, Lamb not only thanks the National Endowment of the Arts for its financial support, but remarks that such support somehow affirms the worth of his novel -- gives it, to quote Lamb, "validation." Why should an artist -- particularly one as gifted as Wally Lamb -- look to the government for validation of the worth of his work? It saddens and scares me that anyone reckons Uncle Sam to possess the authority to validate, or not, artists' products.
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