This is another book where I'm kind of at a loss as to what, exactly, I think of it. I didn't hate it. I certainly didn't love it. I never rushed to get back to it, but it wasn't a chore to read.

Which brings me to: meh.

It's okay.

The story of Dolores has a lot of fat shaming, which drives me crazy. She collects a chosen family around her at the end, of people who take care of each other, and I enjoyed that very much. She's often self-centered and the rest of the world seems not to exist around the main character, which makes her irritating as hell.

Yeah. I didn't hate it. But it's somewhere on the continuum that's very near the tipping point into that territory. But not quite. I wouldn't recommend it to my friends, but neither would I knock it out of someone's hand with a "what the hell are you thinking?"

Damning with faint praise? That seems about right.

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.

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.

This story of a woman from childhood to her thirties was an interesting case study. I enjoyed following this journey, and it has a happy ending. It should have been sadder, but I appreciate the story being told so we can form our own ideas and just watch with curiosity instead of drowning in the morose.

“I think... the secret is to just settle for the shape of your life takes...Instead of you know, always waiting and wishing for what might make you happy.”

Damn, but this is one of those hard books to rate, think about, and review. It's a cauldron of chaos, a literary train wreck written into the character's life. We're with Dolores from a young age, and we go through the agonies of aging and tragedy with her. So. Much. Tragedy!

It's a book I couldn't take in all at once - instead I had to ingest small doses, then come back to it later. Wally Lamb writes cleverly well - his wording sucked me in when I dared to continue Dolores' depressing story. There's symbolism, there's growth, there's walking backward, there's surprises, there's pain and beauty.

Dolores is hard to identify with - in one way this book is so honest, touching upon things people don't mention enough. Obesity and Aids and rape and horrible husbands and death and...well, so much. This is in no way a simple novel about a woman overcoming obesity. Does she ever survive and find herself? Or does she just survive and find herself in a realistic way, the only way people ever really can?

In some ways Dolores was a turn off, and I don't mean her weaknesses, because I understood those. I mean her lashing out and willingness to hurt those close to her so easily. I know it was because of her age at some point, her anger and frustration and teenage hormones - later I know it was because of her rage and because that was the only way she knew how to fight back. I sympathized with her - she went through awful, horrible stuff. I understood when she fell because so many have fallen there too. I didn't mind that - there was just something a little mean-spirited about her, but I guess that's another thing that makes her a more realistic and honest character.

This book is heavy - I don't mean just length, although that's considerable, but because I went through so many long phases with Dolores, phases that were enough to cover a whole novel by each phase itself. I figured when I got to a point, then the rest of the novel would keep following it. But no, more cycles would start and begin, life was lived a long time in these pages, from a child with the world shattered to a woman nearing forty who has found a semblance, finally, of peace.

I struggled between a three and four star rating. The subject matter, the writing style, the heavy depth deserve four stars. I think I didn't enjoy the second half as much, I was growing impatient with it, how it was draining me, and maybe that sucked a rating away from my enjoyment.

I do have to say that She's Come Undone is different, it's daring, it's honest, it's heartbreaking (really), but it's also wonderful and deserves a read. Definitely not a book I'll forget, and it's not something I've read before.

For Dolores, like for so many of us, there's that ray of hope that is at the same time covered with reality's bleakness.

This one's been around for many years, and I finally got around to reading it. It should almost be classified as a horror novel, but the monster is inside, not around the corner.

"She's Come Undone" is the story of a girl's downward spiral into obesity and insanity. Every time you think she's going to turn the corner and be "happy", things just fall apart. I hope some of my younger friends will read this and appreciate what may be going on inside the mind and heart of "that girl" who's such a mean bitch.

What a dark and deep journey.

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.

like most of oprah’s book club books: boring

I have to wonder if any of Lamb's children were teenage girls while he was writing this novel. If not, then I'm sure his wife had her brain picked apart to help him write this novel. Why? Lamb so captures the teenage girl spirit in this book (or at least the spirit of a crushed and ruined teenage girl) that it's hard to believe this wasn't written by a woman.

Delores's story is moving and has something we can all relate to, especially those of us who have ever gone through a trauma or depression. But one thing that's different about Delores is that you can't pity her. She doesn't want that, and Lamb has not written her that way. At times you find yourself wanting to scream at her to wake up and do something!

With the exception of Delores's college "companions" most all the other characters she encounters are fully developed and interesting. They all appear in Delores's life for a reason, enriching her and teaching her a lesson, though not always a lesson Delores learns from.

I don't feel that this is a book that I can criticize this book as much as I should. She's Come Undone is for anyone struggling in their life. In a way it will help you realize that you're not alone, other people have been through shit too, and you can overcome it and be stronger in the end. And even if you haven't been through anything difficult (which I find hard to believe) you should still read this book, because it's still a really good book.

And now, I'm going to end this because I have forgotten what else I want to say. I suppose I've said enough though, and I hope you will read this book if you haven't or tell me what you thought if you have.

OMG! Why did I wait so long to read this book?! LOVED IT!

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.

I think I was 15 when I first read this book. 1995ish. And I hadn’t read it since then. I gave it 5 stars when I added it to GR Bc I remember it being impactful. Little details stuck with me - dolores’ anger. Her weight. Golden curls on a giant of a man. The whale.

On the reread it fell far flatter. Dolores is a miserable human being. With reason, of course. She lies and makes bad decisions and self-destructs over and over. Most uncomfortable for me was how she continually lashed out. I know that hurt people hurt people. But understanding Dolores did not make her any more likable.

I gave this book three stars because, for the most part, I looked forward to picking it up each chance I got. I did not connect with it emotionally - which felt poignant given how 15 year old me felt represented by dolores’s sarcasm and anger. To 40 year old me she felt like a bit of a nitwit and a simplistic being. The last 60 pages or so snatched us from the 2 star ledge by shifting the focus away from Dolores Dolores Dolores for a little bit - reminding us there are other people allowed to suffer and grieve and live.

The book’s intro from the author focused on the many compliments he received for his ability to write a woman so realistically. I respectfully disagree. Dolores is a man’s idea of a woman-victim. Fat. Angry. Hurtful. Careening through life destroying things around her. Enduring 7 years of therapy and “healing” only to leap bizarrely into an unhealthy marriage from which she emerged like the proverbial Phoenix from the ashes - hesitantly ready to love an unhandsome but noble man. And only a baby could make things better. Oh brother.