oh wow - i just finished this book now ... really really enjoyed it ..!!

the style of writing totally works for me. one of those books i simply couldn't put down. every night in bed i said to myself, okay - come on, it's late, you have to sleep now, one more page, that's it - mmm, i ended up turning page after page.

this is my first book by this author, and i'm a fan now - can't wait to read his other books.

amazing how he can get get into the head of a woman, being a man, and write her whole life story and all the difficult things she went through. there are so many lessons, so many things that you think long and hard ... so worth the read.

When I read this book, I felt like the author took his (surprisingly the author is a man for such a female story) hand, clawed through my ribcage and tore my heart out. This is one of the few books that makes me cry. I may feel sorrow when I read an angsty book, but normally I don't cry. Well this one turned on the waterworks for me.

Dolores had a crappy life. Her father who she loved walks out on Dolores and her mother. Mom has to work for the first time in her life and Dolores becomes a latchkey kid. She took solace in eating after she was horribly raped by a neighbor. She ate until she got really big. She ate to fill the hole inside of herself and to take away the pain. It didn't work. It wasn't so bad until her mother died, and it really went downhill.

So she spends the majority of this book as an outcast in the world. I thought Lamb did a great job of showing how the obese feel and are treated. As if they are monstrosities not worthy of human kindness. Even when you are plump, you are often treated unkindly, but being obese is like having a sign on you that says, "I know you think I'm disgusting, so kick me."

Even a person who should understand her pain and what she faces as an obese person, really turns out to be a user, and that part was very hard to read.

Dolores ends up attempting suicide and ends up in a mental institution, getting her mind together and losing weight. When she gets out, she is pleasingly plump. She has a decent job and is faring well. She cannot believe that she is actually getting attention from men. I wish she waited for the right one. Unfortunately she doesn't. That's when she meets the worst piece of garbage on earth, becomes involved with him, and eventually marries him. It's like he picks up on her low self esteem and zeroes in on her. And this relationship takes another very large piece of her heart away in ways that I cannot go into without spoiling the book.

This is one of those journeys where you feel like the end is a cliff overlooking sharp, jagged rocks. Thankfully it's not. If you can continue along on Dolores' heartbreaking voyage of discovery, there is a place of hope at the end. Life won't be a perfect fairy tale ending, but we all know that life isn't like that. But her perseverance and the strength inside her gentle soul allows her to make it to a place of self-discovery and peace, where contentment and joy can enter into her life at the end of this heartbreaking novel.

I read this book the first time, and I listened to it on tape the second time, and both times left me sobbing. Imagine driving your car and crying at the same time. I can't say it's for everyone, but I have no regrets in reading this book. It is one of the few Oprah books that I read and did enjoy, tears and all.

I really didn’t enjoy this book. It felt very bland, sad, depressing and feelingless – nothing came to life for me. I understand women are depressed and led horrible lives with a multitude of problems. I don’t need a book to tell me that – I like to read to learn about something I’m unaware of. Books that are believable/plausible and well written appeal to me – I find it difficult to believe that a 13-year old encounters physical abuse issues, divorce, intense depression, violent rape, and the death of a parent all by the age of 13. Please. Beautifully written books on depressing topics that really came alive for me include Like Water for Elephants, the Pearl by Steinbeck, Grapes of Wrath, Old Man and the Sea, Anne Frank’s Diary, and many others.

I hate this book. Let me just get that out of the way first!

I also have to admit to having personal knowledge of the author - which in no way colors my opinion of this book. Mr. Lamb was a writing teacher at my high school in CT and actually helped me quite a bit in writing my college application essays. I got in to every school I applied for - even my reach school - and I am positive that the essay I wrote was the biggest tipping point. My essay was really good and it was wholly because of Mr. Lamb and his suggestions, pointers and all around encouragement. As a person, Mr. Lamb is wonderful and I will always remember him with high praise.

Which is part of the reason why I wanted to love this book so much. I loved Mr. Lamb. He was the teacher all the students wanted to work with and to have a book of his published! And on Oprah!!! So I picked it up and was so excited - I think I read it in two days or something.

That build up may explain my intense dislike for the book now. Too much hype to live up to. Regardless, I hated the main character. She was a "sad sack" type. Very much a Charlie Brown type - the character who is very nice, NEVER gets a break, is inexplicably constantly treated like crap by everyone around them without deserving it, and makes the trials of Job look like a tropical vacation. After while, I have to say - enough is enough!!! The book became incredibly predictable - not conventionally, i.e. boy meets girl, etc - but rather, if there was a situation described and you imagined the worst possible outcome, that is what would happen! Imagine yourself baking a cake. What's the worst that could happen? Burn the cake moments before the birthday party? Amateur. No, the correct answer is have the gas flowing but the pilot light go out until a spark happens when you slip on the floor in non-skid slippers causing a gigantic explosion that kills the neighbors and innocent children who happened to be arriving for the party at that exact moment but blowing you out the window to safety where you land relatively unharmed but now burned with guilt for the rest of your life. Oh yeah, and the neighborhood now hates you and has voted you out of the community so you are homeless. Now you get the idea. That is what this book reads like - page after page after page of it.

I hated the character (unbelievably wimpy), the story (the ridiculous situations and absurd outcomes), and the plot (which meandered and was like walking with a 2 year old - you had to stop and fully investigate anything shiny before being allowed to move on).

So if you are only somewhat depressed but not quite suicidal yet, this is the book for you. Everyone else should stay away in droves.

If you ever get a chance to meet the actual author, please do - you'll come out better for it.

And my last little comment, try to never read a lesbian sex scene written by a former teacher and mentor. You can never look at him the same again! I am actually glad that I have not met him since because I don't know if I could look at him the same way!!

This was my first reread of 2020. I deleted my old review. This is the first book I’m cleaning house with. The first time around I gave it 5 stars but it’s dropped to a 2 star. Things are just different now, I’m different and if a book has stopped moving or exciting me in some way, it’s going to the trade in box for someone else out there.

Mel

Loaned via Inter-Library service. I have felt much more empathy with Dolores on this second read fifteen years after I first read this. Was Dolores's personality formed by being overweight or was she that type of person regardless? Sadly, she realises that as one movie character from another film says "High school is never over." In college and her working life, she finds that cliques and how you look always affect you; thus she finds herself an outsider. I think that Lamb does a reasonably good job in speaking from the female point of view and he provides many minor characters and various issues which keeps the reader interested. While I Know This Much Is True is still my favorite Lamb novel, She's Come Undone is also a good offering. 3.75★

I really didn't like this book. It was recommended to me as an example of a man that could write with a womens voice. Nope. I didn't buy it. I also didn't buy his understanding of growing up as a fat girl. So Poo on you Mr. Lamb.
Here is a review by someone named Colin who I don't know but I completely agree with:
"Yes. I hated this book. I read it about ten years ago, and it pissed me off. To this day I refer to it as "that goddamn whale book." What repelled me then is that the main character, a fat girl, bonds with a real fucking whale and it's supposed to be Deep and Meaningful. "Yes, Mr. Whale. I am a fat girl. I, too, am a whale. We understand one another." Please. Try harder, Wally. Also, the fat girl hates herself so has a creepily awkward lesbian hookup with a janitor and subsequently kills said janitor's fish. I read that part as weird homophobic classist shit, at least back then, and that's the impression that will stand, because I'm never reading it again.

I don't know why everyone was beside themselves about Lamb as a man writing a female POV, either. Who fucken cares? How come no one makes a huge fuss like that when a woman writes a male POV? This book is so annoying. Argh."
Thank you Colin, well said.

This book sucked. A) What the hell does a MAN know about writing about a fat girl's life? NOTHING. Thus making whole book wrong. B) Obviously didn't research anything about the main character, places her in situations she would NOT be in at the weight prescribed. What did he actually ASK WOMEN what they weigh? Guess what moron, they LIE. A 200lb woman can still fit in a car, loser. I could go on forever. The only reason I even read this book was because I forgot a book on an airplane and was offered this. When choosing between reading ANYTHING and watching yet ANOTHER Julie Roberts movie in-flight, I will chose the book. I should've watched the stupid movie. I want those precious moments of my life back. The only reason I will give this one star is because it has accomplished the act of being shaped like a book.

like most of oprah’s book club books: boring

Reading this book was bizarre and surreal. An anonymous person in a Facebook writers’ group suggested it when I asked for recommendations of books that might attract readers similar to the ones who like my own work.

In the beginning, She’s Come Undone undid me. Although it is a different style and has a whole different flavor than my work, it has so many similar ingredients to n  Plan Z by Leslie Koven (written ca. 1986, published in 2001) and newly published n  The Last Will & Testament of Zelda McFiggn, as well as an unpublished book, that I feel a bit gobsmacked! Since I wrote my books long before I'd even heard of She's Come Undone, I can only conclude that my muse is two-timing me. Thwack-thwack, you slutty sprite!

Okay, that's out of my system.

Now on to She's Come Undone. I enjoyed protagonist Delores Price, but at first her voice struck me as too literary. Was this Wally Lamb unable to surrender to a character who might write less well than he does? But I was wrong. The pacing of the revelation of this literally enormous character is wonderful. She beaches slowly, like the whale who occupies the middle section of the book. The grownup literary voice at the beginning of the book deteriorates into the angry child and the crazy obese teenager of her life story, only to return once she recovers—a skillful permutation of first-person voice.

The novel is divided into three parts: Our Lady of Sorrow, Whales, and The Flying Leg. I especially enjoyed Dolores's younger periods (the first two parts). For my taste, the book got too talky in part three—the kind of blow-by-blow description of thoughts and feelings that often characterizes "women's fiction." But I loved the ending.

There is a lot of talk in the Introduction (which really should be an Afterword, since it's full of spoilers) about how miraculous it is for a male writer to so convincingly write from inside the head of a female protagonist. I disagree. Wally Lamb did what good writers do: he surrendered to his muse. And now that she's done with him, I hope she will get back to the pressing business with moi!

Thanks to Oprah's endorsement, this book has been on my TBR list and my book shelf for years. Glad I finally got a chance to read it. Dolores Price lives a life full of changes: starting from eight years old, she deals with one traumatic experience after another, from her parent's break up, to her mother's break down, a life with a grouchy grandma, neighborhood kids who tease her, and schoolmates who pretend she's invisible. She leads a sad existence, but responds to it with snarky comebacks and scarfing down junk food to hide the pain. Her life continues to spiral out of control as she grows into an adult, taking the reader on one of the wackiest rides I've ever been privy to.

This book reminds me of the movie Forrest Gump because as Dolores grows and deals with her own issues, the reader is also thrust into the signs of the times. Events like Woodstock and the burgeoning AIDs epidemic become major themes and color the story. Also, Dolores is sort of handicapped due to her constant battle with trauma and mental illness. Her decisions are extremely outrageous for most of the book. I probably said, "Girl, what?!" 82 times while reading it.

The first half of the book was not as interesting as I thought it would be. I'd attribute it to most of the characters being extremely unlikeable. Character personalities aside, Wally Lamb is a great, detailed storyteller who kept me engaged, thankfully, because the final quarter of the book was really good and made me happy that I kept pushing through. My opinion on this book is still somewhat up in the air, so I think 3 stars will do.

I was irritated with the main character of this book for the first half of the story. Yeah, bad things had happened to her, but she did not need to wallow in it! I wanted to slap her and say "Wise up, get real, everyone has problems".

About the time I identified how completely her lies were tying her down - she broke free! I was so happy for her! At that point, the multiple truths of the book hit me full in the face and I was overwhelmed. This is one of those books that inspire you to "love your neighbor" out of the real sadness we all face and also because loving and letting others love you is what counts in this life.