All I can say about this book, having read it when it first came out, is that if you have a sibling who is close to you and whom you love dearly, who develops a devastating and incurable mental illness, this book will break your heart. But, it will also speak to you and leave an indelible impression. It's beautiful and eloquent and, in the end, I felt better about life for having shared in the experiences of Dominick and Thomas.

Actual rating is 4.5 stars.

This book is about a set of identical twins that didn't have the easiest life growing up. One of these twins becomes schizophrenic in his teenage years. This book explores his condition and the affect it has on his entire family especially on his twin.

Every time I read part of this book I was having some type of feels. The point of view is from the twin that doesn't suffer from the mental condition and I enjoyed this point of view so much. We get to see how it affected his whole life. It affects his marriage, his work, and his mental health as he worries if this condition will befall on him. I loved how the author portrays this twin as a normal person and not as a hero. There were times when I despised him but also times when I was sympathetic also. It gave a sense of reality to this book as not every day is he going to be the perfect brother and dealing with this ordeal. Some days are going to be real bad on his end too. There was a reason why I could not give a full five star rating. This is a long book (I don't mind that) but at around the two-thirds mark the author introduces new characters and basically a new story. I didn't think this was the time for that. I was really interested in the story but not at this point. I think the author should have done this story as a prequel to this book and make this story a duology.

This is a melodramatic book and it is definitely not a happy story. Many, many times it hit me in the gut with the feels and I was so enthralled with it. Who doesn't love a book that makes you feel some kind of emotion? This book does it in spades. The only reason I read this was I saw the preview for the television series based on this book. I said let me try it as this isn't my typical genre. I am so glad I did. This was a terrific read.

One of my favorites!!!

This book could have been about 500 pages shorter. In addition to constantly repeating himself, as though you may have forgotten the relevant lessons, or stories, or who the characters are from 100 pages back, the writing is painfully slow... until the last 15 pages when life moves at lightening speed and everything gets wrapped up with a big shiny bow by a sentence or two saying how everything worked out for all of the characters for the best over the last several years. Lamb's female characters are also distressingly uni-dimensional and flat. It's tempting to say that this is because it's the main character's voice, but Lamb spends enough time in a voice outside of the this character to do better than that. Add She's Come Undone to this, and it's clear that he just doesn't write women well at all. Lamb also attempts a story within a story (grandpa's memoir) that sort of magically takes on the same voice and perspective as the main character's, despite the italics and different font to tell you that the speaker is a different person. How could this have won so many awards? Lamb has butchered an interesting story concept with poorly executed, predictable, repetitive, and trite writing. Editors and author fell down on this one. I'm officially done with Lamb. Skip it.

im just so relieved to be done with it ? cannot recommend

I HATED this book! I couldn't finish it, that's how much I hated it. The main character for me was so obnoxious and just overall not a pleasant guy. I could handle that, though... until I got to chapter 20, and I apologize if this is a spoiler but this is the chapter where the main character ends up raping his then girlfriend and his future wife/ex-wife (the book jumps between the past and present). I could not get past so many things from that encounter, here are a few: one being that she ends up forgiving him and then ends up marrying him (granted she does leave him later on (hence the ex-wife part), two being the way he ends up reacting to the situation, it was all about him and his needs and he ends up getting pissed at her for accusing him of raping her - well he did! I was conflicted about wanting to finish this book, too because I'm intrigued about the psychological aspects of the story, but I just could not reason reading, and finishing, a book that made me so angry, so I decided to just stop reading it at the end of chapter 20 and move on.

3.5 stars

This is a long long book, however well worth the read. I read the book along with the TV series, staying just ahead of what was being shown on TV. Which was a bit hard to do, since the book went into much more detail than the series. The series ended tonight, so I feel a bit easier giving a review of the book now.

Twins Dominic and Thomas had a hard life. Thomas had mental disabilities and Dominic tried his best all his life to take care of Thomas. Their step -father was not tolerant of Thomas and was abusive to their mother. As they grew older Thomas got worse.
Dominic tried to get a manuscript written by his grandfather translated for his mother. Many years later, after the passing of Thomas, Dominic read the transcript. Most of the questions that had haunted Dominic were answered, except who his biological father was. Dominic blamed all his families bad luck on a curse. A curse put on his grandfather years ago by his sister in law.
In the end Dominic, always the care giver, finds peace and his connection to his life, family and himself.

Not unusual, with Wally Lamb as author, this book was above par. Mark Ruffalo as Thomas and Dominic did a great job in the series.

wow what a book! I know it took me ages to finish it but I was way too busy attending to my newborn son :-) I read it between nappy changes and night time feeds and I must tell you this book is just soooo good. I have read more amusing stories, more complicated family relations but this book beats all the rest simply because Wally Lamb is an amazing writer. Story is so great that I keep thinking about all the characters late into the night and long after I have put the book down. 900 pages seems like a big book but in this case you just don't want the book to end. I could have read another 900 and some. I just didn't want this book to end! it's a must read for sure.

Sometimes my compulsion to finish a book makes me want to scream. At 18% (roughly page 161 of this 898 page monstrosity) I complained to my husband...I really hate this book. Ten days later and many moments of avoiding reading it (good thing there were other chores to do), I finally forced myself to sit and concentrate enough to get through it.

I appreciate what Lamb is trying to do (bring some psychological light to the angry American male and show his own "enlightened" viewpoints about racism and sexism), however the way in which he did it was akin to dental surgery.

First the writing was horrifically repetitive. Not only does Lamb pepper the book with unnecessary 90s nostaglia (pretty much every chapter starts with a few paragraphs about current news events circa 1989-1995), but he also "treats" the reader to Dominick's mental wavering and angst: "This is ridiculous, I thought. I'm wasting an entire Saturday afternoon listening to a fucking phone ring. Still, I couldn't quite hang up yet. She could be just getting home from someplace, throwing open the front door, and rushing to pick up. Or, if she was playing games, then fine, I'd outlast her. Sit there an let it ring until she weakened." Instead of simply, "I called and let it ring for 15 minutes, hoping that she would give in and answer." It may seem like a small point, but a book that could have/should have been 300 pages becomes 900 pages when there is 3 times as many words as necessary for EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THE MAIN CHARACTERS THOUGHTS.

Second, the plot line was unbelievably soap-operatic and dumb. There was just so much stuff in here: murder, rape, suicide, blackmail, baby death, mental illness, child abuse. I think it would have been a much more powerful study of mental illness and the effects of it on the families/support people without all the heavy layering. I get that there can be large impacts, but the power in relating comes with the small details. By continuing to lay on so much stuff Lamb's characters become too hyperbolic and the whole thing moves to a less believable/relate-able plane.

Third, I found myself over and over thinking of Russo's "Sully" character from the Fools books. Dominick was not original (yeah, yeah, he isn't supposed to be), but too many moments felt like rip offs from Russo's better handling of the tough guy who is really soft underneath and needs to learn how to open up to his emotions.

Overall, it got easier to read about 50% of the way in, but still felt like an enormous waste of time and energy.

Ufta. Well...it's a testament to the quality of this book that I was willing to stick it out the entire 900 pages (well, 856, but who's counting?) If you can get past the intimidating bulk and stick it through to the end, there really is some quality writing here that is well worth the time it takes to read.

The plot centers around Dominick Birdsey, the "sane" counterpart to his schizophrenic and paranoid identical twin, Thomas. Most of the novel is dedicated to Dominick acting as an advocate for his brother: Thomas has been admitted to a high security forensic institute and Dominick fights to have him removed while at the same time struggling with his own personal battles. The last third of the book is also a foray into the past as Dominick (and the reader) explores his grandfather's written history and discovers perhaps more than he would have liked to have known about his ancestors.

The author's strong points include well-rounded and extremely interesting characters, a terrific ability to make everything come full circle thematically, and a good ear for dialogue. I can forgive the small bits of mysticism here and there because I felt they weren't there simply for artsiness or filler, but rather to develop character and move the plot along.

I will say that I thought the ending was too "wrapped up." He spelled every little thing out, tied up every single loose end, made everything resolve itself in a nice little package. But I was so invested in the other 840+ pages that it was the characters and their quirks and their heartbreaks and their conflicts, not the ending, that stuck with me.

I made a promise with myself that in 2019 I would read the book that has been on my to read list the longest. This was it. When I loaned it from the library the first thing I saw was wow, 897 pages. It’s a commitment to take on such a long book, especially for a relatively slow reader like myself.

Spoiler alert, I will briefly mention some of the main issues and topics in the book. Set in the early 1990s, it is told from the point of view of Dominick Birdsey who is in his mid-30s We gradually come to learn that Dominick has a lot of stuff going on in his life. His identical twin brother Thomas has paranoid schizophrenia and has just committed a very violent act in the local library; their mother has recently passed away and Dominick promised her on her death bed that he would always look out for Thomas; Dominick has never known who his father is; the stepfather Ray ruled the household very strictly and often treated the boys badly, particularly Thomas; was this a factor in Thomas getting his mental illness when Dominick didn’t? Dominick is divorced but still feels strongly about his ex-wife Dessa, they lost a child at three weeks old and this drove a wedge between them; Dominick went out and got himself a vasectomy he was that angry; his new partner Joy is 15 years younger than him and when she tells him she’s pregnant he knows the child cannot be his.

Whew! Heavy stuff! Never a dull moment hey. I have left out a few other things going on too. I will give it four stars as I did become engaged with the story and it did hold my interest the whole way through. I did feel it could have been shorter, maybe by a couple of hundred pages. A book of nearly 900 pages is a bloody long book! The manuscript of the life story of Dominick’s grandfather didn’t have to be that long imo, I skimmed over a bit of that. It went on for around 100 pages I estimate and didn't add much to the meat of the story and I almost felt it could have been left out altogether. Some of the other stuff didn’t really need to be that drawn out. Also, I wasn’t crazy about  the fact that everything sorts itself out in the long run. Dominick gets back together with his ex-wife; his ex-girlfriend Joy dies from AIDS and they adopt the baby, how convenient and nice for a couple who can no longer have a child; he is distraught at Thomas’ death but deals with it well; he finds out who his father is; he reconciles with the stepfather Ray, a guy he hated for most of his life; his career gets sorted, he sells his painting business and gets back into teaching; and so on, and so on. Am I some sort of killjoy for thinking that a Hollywood / he lives happily ever after ending could have been different? Couldn’t at least one thing have gone pear-shaped? Just a little? Anyhow I did enjoy it and will definitely read another of Wally Lamb’s books one day.

One quality I consider a "good" novel should have is a sense of "completeness" in its story - and this novel feels complete. The writing is wonderful and the characters are vivid. I like its exploration of mental health issues. This is a domestic fiction of epic proportion.