She's Come Undone

I really, truly, honest-to-god am not exaggerating when I say this is one of the worst books I ever read while I was an adult. Lamb hasn't written an actual story so much as he's bound together a series of advice columns and chat show episodes dressed up in vague narrative form. The girl's father leaves! Then she gets raped! Then she gains weight! Then her roommate is mean to her! Then she loses weight but hooks up with a bad boyfriend! Then some more bad things happen to her after that! And more still after that! And on and on, ad nauseam. Someone should have told Lamb that dreaming up parade of horribles isn't the same as writing a novel. Save yourself 500 pages and watch a couple episodes of Dr. Phil instead. Awful, awful, awful show more book. If I could give it less than one star, I would.

Addendum: Every so often, someone comes along and flags this review as having spoilers. Complaining about spoilers in this review is, not to put too fine a point on it, really stupid. Most of the plot points I mention here are either in the actual cover copy of the book, in the Goodreads summary, or occur somewhere within the first ten pages or so. The rest are so vague (e.g., hooking up with a bad boyfriend -- a plot point that probably occurs in some form in, oh, half of the books ever written) that if you consider them "spoilers," I'm not really sure why you read book reviews at all.

Further addendum: If you're about to complain about spoilers in this review, please see comment 55 below. If you're that hysterical about spoilers, maybe stop reading online reviews before you read the book. Also, the book was published well over 30 years ago and I think the statute of limitations has really run on this one. Rosebud was his sled!! show less

“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 show more 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. show less

This book is about a woman being kicked down a hill again and again and hitting the bottom. Her life is crazy, her life is unfair. Dolores is very hate-able, very pitiable. She's a flawed woman, terribly flawed, her situations and experiences are awful and depressing, this book in general is awful and depressing.

Dolores is our main character, the book has us follow her from age four to forty. Her life is rife with bad sex, bad partners, obesity, abuse, loss, and her wondering how life can be any more shit, then slowly climbing back within the last chapter. It's messy, it's horrible, it's a book I thoroughly enjoyed because each kick was her rolling downhill, she'd hit the bottom and we'd have her kicked again, hemorrhoid cream from show more rough anal sex, crying all night and hating her reflection, people dying, her dreams gone, she sank and sank and sank until she floated.

This book isn't perfect, its characters are not perfect, nothing here is perfect, it's an ugly gaping mess coming undone. Woman problems written by someone who is not a woman but nailed even so. The pettiness, the karma, the resentment. This book brings out so much of the craziness of life, or the chaos. We never know how hard it just might hit us within a year, a week, a month, even a decade. Dolores is that person, and a very messy person at that! show less

This book is about a woman being kicked down a hill again and again and hitting the bottom. Her life is crazy, her life is unfair. Dolores is very hate-able, very pitiable. She's a flawed woman, terribly flawed, her situations and experiences are awful and depressing, this book in general is awful and depressing.

Dolores is our main character, the book has us follow her from age four to forty. Her life is rife with bad sex, bad partners, obesity, abuse, loss, and her wondering how life can be any more shit, then slowly climbing back within the last chapter. It's messy, it's horrible, it's a book I thoroughly enjoyed because each kick was her rolling downhill, she'd hit the bottom and we'd have her kicked again, hemorrhoid cream from show more rough anal sex, crying all night and hating her reflection, people dying, her dreams gone, she sank and sank and sank until she floated.

This book isn't perfect, its characters are not perfect, nothing here is perfect, it's an ugly gaping mess coming undone. Woman problems written by someone who is not a woman but nailed even so. The pettiness, the karma, the resentment. This book brings out so much of the craziness of life, or the chaos. We never know how hard it just might hit us within a year, a week, a month, even a decade. Dolores is that person, and a very messy person at that! show less

Oprah Book Club® Selection, January 1997: "Mine is a story of craving; an unreliable account of lusts and troubles that began, somehow, in 1956 on the day our free television was delivered." So begins the story of Dolores Price, the unconventional heroine of Wally Lamb's She's Come Undone. Dolores is a class-A emotional basket case, and why shouldn't she be? She's suffered almost every abuse and familial travesty that exists: Her father is a violent, philandering liar; her mother has the mental and emotional consistency of Jell-O; and the men in her life are probably the gender's most loathsome creatures. But Dolores is no quitter; she battles her woes with a sense of self-indulgence and gluttony rivaled only by Henry VIII. Hers is a show more dysfunctional Wonder Years, where growing up in the golden era was anything but ideal. While most kids her age were dealing with the monumental importance of the latest Beatles single and how college turned an older sibling into a long-haired hippie, Dolores was grappling with such issues as divorce, rape, and mental illness. Whether you're disgusted by her antics or moved by her pathetic ploys, you'll be drawn into Dolores's warped, hilarious, Mallomar-munching world.
This is item 4 in The Oprah's Book Club Series. show less

I fell in love with Dolores within the first couple of chapters. I don't think she had "come undone" as much as I think she was already broken, and being raised in an unstable home didn't help any with putting the broken bits back together, The first half of this book was spectacular, but once again as in Wally Lamb's other book "I know This Much Is True" I hated the therapist, the therapy and the time Dolores spent in it. My interest really waned in that 3 quarters or so of the book and I was as happy as Dolores herself to be done with it. The last quarter of the book thankfully had nothing to do with the psychiatrist and pretty much went back to being a spectacular story.

I just finished this wonderful book today. It’s depressing at times but still amazing. You really do fall in love with Dolores and keep reading in hope that something good will happen for her. There were a few times when I kept thinking, “God, nothing good is going to happen for this girl, and nothing good is going to result in this book. I don’t need to be reading something so utterly depressing.” But I kept reading in hope that something good was going to happen and it did. I think it was harder for me because the things she kept experiencing were things that I can all too easily relate to. But then again, that’s what made it just that mush better. When Dolores starts taking night classes and she says that they had to sit in show more a circle and introduce themselves, I couldn’t help but laugh and ask in amazement why, if they’ve been doing that since the 80′s, no one has declared it dated or useless and stopped doing it. Also, I couldn’t help but feel a tinge of pride when I could understand Lamb’s references to the 60′s and 70′s. My parents raised me well, I guess. What I loved the most, though, was the way it ended. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; I love stories that end right rather than perfect. Stories that end with a happily-ever-after and a little bow on top, all the loose ends neatly tied in place feel forced to me (COUGH Lost COUGH). I love when a writer just ends the story, the characters are still living and trying their best to get by. Nothing is perfect, but nothing is terrible. Because that’s the way life is; we live our lives the best we can until the day we die. Perfect things can happen but life will continue after that, be it good or bad. We all continue living and that’s the fact of the matter. Anyways, that’s how this book ends; right. Her life isn’t perfect, but she’s not miserable. She is, for once, happy.

Of course I have to bring up the author, Wally Lamb, who is in fact male. The fact that he was able to pull off such a female voice is extraordinary. So much, that had their not been a picture in the back of Lamb, I would have assumed it was a pen name. Who knows, maybe it is and some woman out there has pulled one over on us all.

Though this book can get depressing, the pay off is totally worth it. Lamb writes with a beautiful flow that breathes life into every one of his characters. Definitely worth a read. show less