One of my favorite books and authors...

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	• She's Come Undone (Oprah's Book Club) Wally Lamb Pocket, 1998 - 480 pages average customer review:based on 1669 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Undoing the past

She's Come Undone is a novel of disintegration. Dolores's life begins to unravel with the arrival of a free television set, though her life has always been poised to erode.

Like all unhappy families, Dorloros's is unhappy in its own, special way, though I admit that I'm getting tired about reading about unhappy families. It seems like this is yet another my-family-sucks-and-that's-why-I'm-so-messed-up book. It seems like people in America blame their parents for everything. Yes, your parents gave you your problems, but they're YOUR problems now. Deal with them and move on.

Lately, I've been branching out from the so-called chick lit genre into more diverse books just because, although Tolstoy would disagree, it seems like there are only so many variations on the unhappy family, and I think modern literature has run through them all.

Try Rabid: A Novel, for a truly original take on the unhappy family and recovery. It's a much better book.

Minna

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A novel for the 21st century

Delores Price is possibly the quintessential heroine of the 21st century. She's Come Undone might become the Great Gatsby of our generation.

In Lamb's masterful hands, we learn how Delores' life unravels, bottoms out, evens out, and then, finally watch as all the damage is "undone." We suffer through the details of her painful descent into her own private hell, then experience her unusual, sad, and touching experiences while in a mental institution. We wait anxiously during her recovery phase and hold our breath during her stressful college years. We cheer as she begins to gather strength, until finally, she achieves self-realization. Delores is a kind of modern-day "everyman" (or woman!)and we can all learn from her triumph over her life's adversities. If only everyone could experience her epiphanies!

Lamb's message seems to be that everyone has events in their lives that can cause a negative chain of events. Some events are of course more disasterous than others, and some people's reactions are more severe than others'. But the point is that we can overcome hardships by looking for the possible and by letting love and positive energies into our lives, rather than focusing on and wallowing in the negative.

This book was a good read, and Lamb is clearly a writer who will make an impact on contemporary literature. He is a writer to watch and I will probably read everything he comes out with. My only hesitation about She's Come Undone is that it seemed too long.

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Couldn't put it down

I could NOT put this book down. It's now one of my top recommendations to friends and family. One of my favorite books.

One of my favorite books and authors...

My mom was cleaning out closets and came across "She's Come Undone," which I had read several year ago. It is one of my all-time favorite books, one that I still bring up when discussing novels. I thought it was an amazing story, and I have always been amazed that it was written in first person by a man. The character of Dolores is so real and believable. I took the book from my mom and read it over again, and I still love the book, although since my first reading, I have had children and been through the death of a parent, just to name a couple of things.. just many more life experiences. I do have to say that re-reading the book as a mother made it a whole different experience. Definitely came across much sadder to me, and I viewed the characters of Dolores, her mother, and her grandmother in a new light. I still laughed out loud more than a few times, but definitely cried more this time, too. It is still a fantastic book and one I will always keep in my collection. Wally Lamb is a gifted writer to have written the type of book that stays with you long after you put it down.

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An effortless and effecting read

I find that I can have a bit of an attention defecit with many books, and it usually takes me a week or more to get through a story. Such was not the case with this book. The story of Delores Price takes you from her sometimes difficult childhood through an even more challenging young adulthood, and into her thirties.

Delores endures the divorce of her parents, loss of contact with her father, the trauma of moving to a new state, difficulty making friends, and even rape by a trusted family friend. Later, she deals with the loss of her mother and guilt over their tumultuous relationship. She endures more sexual abuse. She endures a miscarriage. Divorce from a cold, callous husband. Death of a loved one from AIDS. And later, she struggles with infertility.

The events that befall Delores throughout her young life run the gamut from bad to worse. She often finds herself without the provisions to deal with the various traumas that befall her. In the end, it is the tremendous comfort and support that she receives from a smattering of extraordinary people she meets along the way who help pull her through.

This is a touching and truly unique story. It is at once saddening and inspiring. I would recommend this book to anyone looking to get lost in a great book.

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