User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
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.
Rating: really liked it
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.
Rating: really liked it
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.
Rating: really liked it
This is one of my all time favorite books. I just recently reread the book and fell in love all over again. It had been some time since I read the book and felt I should refresh my memory since I recommend it to so many.
She’s Come Undone is the story of a troubled teenage girl growing into a woman, her struggles and the ways in which she decides to cope with them. She puts on a tough exterior but inside is as soft as the marshmallows she finds comfort in.
Dolores is plagued with heartache, hurt and uncertainty. As a teenager it seems that every person she allows close to her hurts her. She withdraws herself inward and finds comfort in the television and food, losing all interest in the outside world. By doing so she creates more problems for herself, mentally and physically.
When she heads off to college, extremely overweight, she finds out how cruel the world can really be, which sends her even farther down the spiral. Eventually she hits rock bottom. After a couple of years of treatment she decides to create her own destiny. To take control of her life and make it what she wants.
At first things were working out for her and it seemed she had the life she always longed for. We all know that it never happens that way, there is always a snafu, and things do go south for Dolores. But you know what, it just raises her higher. She finally finds herself and makes peace with her past.
There is no need for you to have experienced all the hurt, heartache and tragedy as Dolores to empathize with her, all you have to be is a woman. The most remarkable aspect of the book is that it was not written by a woman. The very first time I read the book I kept checking the cover to make sure it was a man that was writing it. Some how, and I am not sure how, Wally Lamb has totally tapped into how it feels to be a teenage girl, an abused girl, a girl coming into a woman, a woman having her heart broken for the first time by the man of her dreams, and a woman making it on her own after all of these things.
Truly an incredible book. Buy it for all the women in your life.
Rating: really liked it
Let me put it this way: if this book were wine, it wouldn't even be Boone's Farm. 'Nuff said.
Rating: really liked it
You can skip this one. If you get the talking book version on cds, you can skip it across the surface of the nearest large body of water you can find, until it sinks. As it sinks you might hear a voice sounding like Oprah saying " this is the beautiful, unconventional and ultimately life glug affirming glug story of a woman glug glug who endures glug glerg every tribulation glag glag which Wally Lamb could think glug of having studied daytime gluuuurgggg soaps for a year......glgg...rape....ggggg....self-harm......ggg...mental hospital....ggg......"
until finally, all that can be heard is the tweeting of an odd looking bird in a nearby bush. Its curiously unmusical trill sounds like
youfellforthehypeagain!
youfellforthehypeagain!
youfellforthehypeagain!
Rating: really liked it
I'm amazed by how many people hated this book. I had mixed feelings about it. Yes, the characters and situations were godawful, and at times it was more than a little contrived. A lot of people on this forum said it was hard to believe that so many horrible things could happen to one person - that I don't think is true. I have known people who have had that many horrible things happen to them. But some of the situations were pretty far-fetched. But I remember finding this book utterly fascinating and being unable to put it down. I'm not even sure why - it was such a horrifying book, but I guess it had a "train wreck" quality to it. I still remember this book so well even though I read it years ago. Even though I didn't relate to it personally that much, something about that book just stayed with me long after I read it.
Rating: really liked it
If there was a way to give this book 10 stars, I would. The main character in this book, Dolores Price, has become one of my top five favorite protagonists. I finished the book a few hours ago, and am still absorbing it. Quite honestly, I am semi-baffled by the negative reviews of this novel. I say "semi" because I noticed a pattern of the negative reviews. Women complaining that a "man" was writing about the experience of a young girl, or one very angry reviewer "hating" this book because what did the author know about being fat and HOW DARE he refer to Dolores as obese (Dolores, at 13 weighed 250 pounds, I'm sorry but that IS obese). And, excuse me, but since when is the rule that male authors can only write about men and female authors about women?
WIth that said, yes, this book was heavy. Lots of very very awful and horrible things happen to Dolores as a child AND as an adult. There is domestic abuse, rape, death, compulsive eating, AIDS, abortion and suicide as just some of the things that cross Dolores's path in her journey. This is not a book for people who expect a happily-ever-after ending. One reviewer stating "everything in this book was depressing". If that is what you get from this book, then you have not dug deep enough to understand her. As a child, she used food to hide her anguish and pain, and getting raped at 13 years old jumpstarts more horrible events and behaviors. After her mother dies and Dolores makes the very brave decision to go away to college, a much older female friend seduces her and pretty much takes advantage of Dolores, and they have sex. Again, a lesbian reviewer, took offense to the way the author chose to portray a gay woman. As a lesbian, and strong feminist, I took no offense at all and I think if you are someone who is not looking to compare your life with Dolores's, then you will love and appreciate this book. Dolores is funny, smart, and at the end of her story has not only faced her demons, but smacked them around a few times and sent them flying. I was so proud of her for who she had become and how she had healed!
This book is about a JOURNEY, male author or not, it depicts a young woman's turbulent life experiences and her triumphs as well. She is strong, beautiful, funny, smart, and loving. This novel will stay with me for a very long time and has reminded me of how fragile relationships are, especially our relationships with ourselves. We ABSOLUTELY have to love who we are in order to love someone else. This was an amazing story.
Rating: really liked it
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 🖤🐶🐺🐾
Rating: really liked it
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!!
Rating: really liked it
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.
Rating: really liked it
She's Come Undone, Wally LambShe's Come Undone is the 1992 debut novel by Wally Lamb. She's Come Undone has been translated into eighteen languages.
She's Come Undone is the story of a troubled teenage girl growing into a woman, her struggles and the ways in which she decides to cope with them. In this engaging first novel, narrator Dolores Price recounts her life story from age four to age 40.
Wally Lamb has written his first novel in the arresting voice of Dolores Price, a 40-year-old woman who recounts in scrupulous detail her harrowing progress into adulthood.
In "She's Come Undone," an ambitious, often stirring and hilarious book, Mr. Lamb gives his vociferous heroine truly heroic proportions, in both the physical and the psychical sense.
تاریخ نخستین خوانش روز نخست ماه اکتبر سال 2008میلادی
عنوان: دو لورس؛ نویسنده: والی لمب؛ مترجم: نوشین ریشهری؛ تهران، نقش و نگار، 1384؛ در 336ص؛ شابک 9646235921؛ موضوع داستانهای نویسندگان ایالات متحده آمریکا - سده 20م
رمان «دولورس؛ دختر ناموفق»، نوشته «والی لمب» نویسنده ی «آمریكایی» است؛ «دولورس» شخصیت محوری این رمان از مشکلات خانوادگی بسیاری رنج میبرد ولی تلاش خستگی ناپذیری را برای رهایی از این مشکلات و آفرینش یک زندگی دیگر را برای خود آغاز میکند و...؛
تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 09/07/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی
Rating: really liked it
Wally Lamb is one of my favorite writers. This particular book is written in a woman’s prospective. Her name is Dolores. It starts out when she was a child; explain in details the experiences she has with her parents. Then it goes on to reveal situations about her father, her mother’s mental health issues and how the main character deals with these issues. She deals with them by eating so excessively that she gains 260lbs as a young adult. She is a bitter and smart mouthed teen who doesn’t want help from anyone and relies on only one person to talk to. Through out the book you get to learn what goes on inside of her head. You feel for her for all the things she has to go through. The book moves through college, she is then in a mental institution and while trying to get her life back in order she finds a man. You then get to learn about her relationship with this man. But it does not end there...
In whole, the book is a fantastic read. I would recommend this to Anyone. You will read it in one sitting.
Rating: really liked it
She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
A week after finishing this book, I still have conflicting opinions. It’s hard to synthesize them into a coherent review, so I’m just going to summarize what I liked and disliked.
On the plus side:
Easy to read: The story is told as a first-person narrative by the main protagonist, Dolores. Though her actions can be exasperating to the point where you want to shake some sense into her, she is always engaging, keeping a sense of (sometimes gallows) humor as she recreates her story. And it’s impossible not to admire Lamb’s skill in writing from the perspective of an overweight, overwhelmed woman as he tracks her history over the 25-year span of the book.
Growth and development: It’s incremental, it’s painful, there is backsliding – but there is growth. The ending offers a measure of comfort, but to a degree that seems deliberately subdued – there is no fairy-tale ending here. Lamb is showing us that adversity can be overcome, but doing so is hard work. And don’t get too comfortable – any ground that you gain in life could be lost overnight. There is something completely admirable in the way that Dolores doesn’t simply buckle, but – against considerable odds – manages to reach a level of self-awareness that affords her a measure of contentment in her own skin
As against that:
Hard to read: For the same reasons that the book of Job is not your favorite book of the bible (If the book of Job is your favorite, either you need psychological counseling, or have evolved to a remarkably advanced spiritual state. Either way, you probably won’t get much from this review). The tribulations just keep coming. Guilt about parents divorcing? Daddy abandonment issues? That’s just the baseline. Let’s pile on a little molestation, rape, 150 or so excess pounds, several years in a psychiatric facility, peer rejection and gratuitous cruelty, marriage to a philandering narcissist, abortion, and the death of almost everyone dear to you. You can almost hear Satan betting with that dear old-Testament God. Dolores’s failure to conceive is almost a relief – at least we’re spared the prospect of a child-immolation scene.
Growth and development: Wait now. Didn’t I list this under the ‘things to like’? Well, yes I did. So sue me for also disliking it. Because there is that unavoidable Oprah sticker right on the cover of this book. And it’s completely obvious why – the kind of uplift that is doled out makes this book a shoo-in for Oprah-approval. But it’s hard not to feel that one is being emotionally manipulated throughout, on a grand scale. To which my – possibly irrational – response is “Dude, if you’re going to play the reader like a cheap violin, then at least have the decency to provide more of a feel-good ending than you do”.
Dead whale metaphors: Give me a break, Wally! Was this really necessary? Best you could come up with? Why not just club me over the head and have done with it?
And, if I were a lesbian, I think I’d be within my rights to be offended by this book.
You can tell, I’m all over the map where this book is concerned. Which means it got under my skin more than I might like to admit. Which is what allows it to keep its third star.
Rating: really liked it
I hate this book so much it can change my opinion of you if you say you like it.
Bad things happen to girl, girl does SERIOUSLY RANDOM CRAP. Like, "Now that we've had sex, Random Lesbian, I would like to kill your fish."
Girls, especially the big, giant, fat ones, cannot control themselves or command their destiny. But they really dig whales! (Goldfish beware!)
Oh my God, I hate it.
