Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
a poignant, perceptive and beautiful story, 18 April 2002
By A Customer
I don't often find myself crying when I read books (and this is only the second time I have written an Amazon review) - but I have just finished this brilliant book and found that I had to get online immediately to write about how much I enjoyed it. I found myself crying regularly throughout, sometimes not just because of a poignant moment but because Wally Lamb seems to have such an amazing emotional insight into women's emotions and frailties. I had not expected to be so drawn in to the world of Dolores but I have found myself wishing the hours away till I could settle down in the evening again with the book. I can't see how this book could be anything other than inspiring and emotionally potent to women readers - who hasn't felt like an outcast at times, or lonely, or caught up in a chain of events that fate has set you on. Readers who have complained that too much happens or that any coincidences stretch their credibility are missing the point - we are talking about a span of nearly four decades where we follow Dolores's life. Nothing Lamb has written is impossible. I bought into Dolores's emotional journey and pain and yearnings and cynicism and self-defence mechanisms one hundred percent. This has become one of the best novels I have ever read (my eyes are still puffy with crying!) and as an aspiring writer I am totally envious of Lamb's talent (though not to the degree that one other reviewer spotted - the fact that Lisa Jewell apparently plagiarised this story in one of her books is appalling!)
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
Priceless Dolores, 10 Mar 2004
The length of this book put me off initially and for a couple of months it simply sat on my shelf, intimidating me, overwhelming me. Eventually I managed to pick it up and, once I had, I could not put it down. Wally Lamb's She's Come Undone tells the story of Dolores Price from aged 4 through to middle age. I found her to be immediately likeable. She begins as a naive young child and I think she retains most of this naivety throughout, which can be seen in the letters she writes to her grandmother later on in the book. Wally Lamb throws practically every tragedy you could ever imagine at poor old Dolores, including divorce, rape, death, depression, AIDS, abortion, infertility, obesity. But I don't think this makes the book unlikely or a depressing read, as some have claimed. Granted, She's Come Undone is capable of making you cry, but surely I am not the only reader capable of seeing the humour which exists in nearly every page? How can you not laugh at instances such as when Dolores claims to be an artist and is asked "What medium do you work in?" to which she replies, with all seriousness, "Etch-a-sketch." That She's Come Undone is actually written by a man is truely remarkable. Lamb captures perfectly the hopes and insecurities many women feel. The book is extremely well-written and Dolores Price is so real she literally jumps off each page. This book evokes sadness, laughter, inspiration (though not in an over-sentimental way). The main theme is about wanting to be loved and I found the ending (where Dolores finds happiness but to a degree and not exactly everything she craved for) a refreshing change to the stereotypical endings many books of this type have. In sum, I would recommend this book very highly and I look forward to reading Wally Lamb's other novels.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
Wonderful, 12 Jun 2005
This book made me laugh out loud on the tube. It also had me whistling tunes that I haven't heard for years, and it also made me cry. I haven't engaged so strongly with a heroine for a while and Dolores Price is written with such honesty and such a clarity of expression that she is an irresistible character. The plot of the book involves multiple deaths, rape and emotional abuse and the strength of this novel is that these horrific events are presented in the context of a very well-observed ensemble of characters; and funnily enough, the parts that made me cry weren't the deaths, or the rape, but the little hurts that the characters inflicted upon one another; the small woundings that families inflict on each other over the years. Some of the characters in the ensemble are ogres but most of the central characters are presented as real, fallible human beings. The character Roberta deserves a novel of her own. The imperfections in the book come near the end, with slightly clunky characterisations of new and important characters; but this is completely forgivable and is kind of a relief after the emotionally-tumultuous journey that you go through as a reader before this. This is such a satisfying book - I strongly recommend it. Be prepared to feel some pain, but it's far from all-painful: there's a lot of light there too; and you will feel better for reading it.
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