I thought this was a great story. Yes, it was depressing but I was really pulling for Dolores to pull herself out of the difficult situations she was in. She's a very relatable character. I thought the writing was very good. I was surprised a man wrote this book. He has great insight on how women feel.

She's Come Undone is just so fantastic. I have read this book twice, which is something I never do. The first time I read it was in high school. The second time while I was in my undergrad studies.

There is something so real and touching about the way Lamb wrote the way a woman feels and thinks, which made me forget it was a man who wrote the novel.

The two times I have read this, I took away something different each time. Dolores is the type of woman who has some of my fears as a woman: weight, different insecurities, and other issues I could tell she had. They made the story more real to me.

Some might criticize this book because it was a little depressing in some areas, but I praise it for being real, taking on the challenge of a woman's mind, and ultimately for just being so memorable.

I don't re-read books. There are just so many, and not enough time. However, I will read this for a third and probably a fourth time. It is easily probably my most favorite book EVER.

As I've mentioned before, I hate weak characters. Even more, I hate weak characters with self-pity. This one was hard to swallow. Being obese does not give people the right to treat others like crap. And no one's life is easy, so that's not a good excuse for poor behavior either.

I’m trying to think of any other book that had me sobbing as hard as this one… my heart is heavy but i loved it so much

Trigger Warnings: rape, obesity, mental illness, suicidal ideation, miscarriage, abortion, infidelity, spousal abuse

This book has been my all-time favorite for a very long time, and I re-read it every couple of years (this was my 4th time!). Each time, it’s as good as the first. This fantastically written, tragic, and heartbreaking story follows the main character, Dolores Price, from childhood to adulthood, as she is forced to navigate through many losses and one trauma after another. It’s full of unique and complex characters- I have such love for this motley crew! The character development in this story is beyond phenomenal, and Dolores is by far the best female character I’ve ever read about. Wally Lamb writes from a female perspective like no other author can, leaving the reader no choice but to feel fiercely protective of her, root like hell for her, and love her unconditionally. Despite her roughened edges, Dolores is real, flawed, funny, and lovable, and is just trying to find her place in the world amidst more heartbreak and challenges than one person should ever have to endure. You will find sprinkles of humor and sarcasm in this story that help to alleviate some of the heaviness.
This book is just so near and dear to my heart. I look forward to re-reading this book many times in the years to come.

Amazing, sad, weird, fascinating story. Enjoyed it, sort of John Irving style.

I hate this book. The problems with this book are-

Stereotypes. Every supporting character is some kind of stereotype. They don't seem like real, actual people. Not every gay man is effeminate, not every lesbian is butchy. But Lamb doesn't get this so both books I've read by him just have to be chock full of the most annoying stereotypes. Along with the long suffering tormented mother and men that are complete jerks. It gets frustrating.

Dolores is an unpleasant character who makes such terrible decisions such as basically stalking a man, killing someone's fish and just being terrible to people who try to be good to her. Worse is how certain characters, such as a gay man dying of AIDS, exist more to teach her things than to be their own people.

It's the sort of book I liked the first time, but reading it two more times just cements the problems with it. The way it uses the most popular things of an era, which never really reads as authentic to me.

And how difficult is it to write in a woman's perspective? But the fatphobia in this book drove me up a tree. How horrible is it for someone to be fat? It means having extra meat on their bones. It shouldn't be a source of total hatred. Guh.

2.5 Stars

She's come undone by Wally Lamb was October Book Club read and was really looking forward to this one as have been hearing great things about Wally Lamb.

This is one of those books you either love or hate and I am pretty much on the side of the haters due to the fact that I found the book quite depressing. Half way through the story I was thinking please let something positive happen in this book or just something uplifting. I found the plot just too unbelievable and a bit contrived.

The characters however are well developed and you really do get a great sense of time and place from this novel and Wally Lamb's writing.
I think that this will make a great book club read as we had an excellent discussion on this one.

When I read this, which is a long time ago now, I was not impressed by his lesbian character. If I read it correctly, the subtext says lesbianism is a pathology to which fat women are particularly susceptible. And lesbians are predatory.

Is plot message? Perhaps not, but when a man writes from the perspective of a woman, am I out of line to look at the plot with a critical eye? He is neither female nor, necessarily, lesbian.

Could what he described happen? Sure. But it's mostly straight people who look at lesbians from the outside and think we're a bunch of women who have "let ourselves go." It's true that the aesthetics are often different in this community, and we are more accepting of a variety of female forms. But we're not dykes because we're fat, even when we are fat.

If only we'd all learn to feel good about ourselves and go on a diet, there'd be no lesbians anymore. *sigh*

Liked I Know This Much... way better. Primarily because he did a lot of research and got his facts right.

4 Stars.
Dolores Price isn’t your average girl. She’s been through a lot. Heartache. Pain. Suffering. Loss. I know that might sound pretty average to all of you. But her life is anything but.

Dolores is smart as a whip and completely closed off. You can’t blame her for being that way of course - her dad deserted her when she was young, she lost a part of herself when she was taken advantage of by an older man as a teenager and she lost her mom to a horrible accident, right as she was about to enter University. And that my friends, isn’t even half of it. How did she cope, you ask? As a child, her mom gave her food and for years, it did. But in the end, it didn’t solve Dolores’ problems. For that she needed help and she needed to find herself. And that,she did.

“She’s Come Undone” by Wally Lamb is a fascinating coming of age story about a young woman who goes through a truly stunning tale of loss, growth and rebirth. Dolores Price is a woman who will suffer defeat but will not be defeated. Narrated by the phenomenal Kathy Najimy, this novel grasped hold and wouldn’t let go. Wally Lamb did an exceptional job of describing Dolores’ journey into adulthood and her struggle to let go of the burdens of her past. I felt Dolores’ pain and ached for her. Her rebirth was mine as well. All I could think was, “You Go Girl!

Published on Goodreads and Amazon on 5.4.17.

***NO SPOILERS***

Reviewing this more than a decade after I read it, I no longer remember specifics beyond one especially troubling (and unnecessary) scene. What I do remember well is how frank the story is, often upsettingly so. As I discovered in my attempt to read The Hour I First Believed, Wally Lamb likes to cram several big, complex issues into a single bleak story, and She's Come Undone has this same flaw. As a storyteller, he's a mess. I can't justify spending reading time on another Lamb book when so many others tell more sophisticated, emotionally balanced stories that explore all the nuance of their themes.

A bartendress at my hometown bar when I'd moved back there about ten years ago gave this to me when I mentioned I liked to read and stuff and she'd give me the glad eye, the inevitably-we-gonna-get-it-on eye, and free drinks all the time UNTIL I returned this book and said I couldn't get past page 30 because it's totally terrible. She called me a literary snob and stopped talking to me, but the thing is I was really horny at the time and not an idiot and thought she was sort of pretty, so let that give you an idea of how terrible this book is, that is, if you are a literary snob, that is if you like writing that's sort of maybe kind of semi-good.