She's Come Undone (Oprah's Book Club)
by Wally Lamb
List Price:
Our Price: $3.78
You Save: $4.21 (53%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Wally LambEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 1998-06-01
ISBN: 0671021001
Number of pages: 480
Publisher: Pocket
Accessories:
Book Reviews of She's Come Undone (Oprah's Book Club)
Book Review: Well written, gripping, but horribly disturbing.
Summary: 2 Stars
Here it is 2008 and I just realized this book is 16 years old. I picked it up this weekend at the grocery store pulled in by the #1 Best Seller across the top. While the book is very well written and I literally couldn't put it down, I was stunned at the content. After I finished it, I told my husband that every single thing I find morally abhorrent was contained in this book.
1. Adultery - throughout.
2. Physical abuse - her parents were physically abusive as was Dolores.
3. Rape.
4. Incest - her own father pinched her breasts as a pre-teen and asked about her "walnuts".
5. Theft. She steals her roommates mail and justifys it it in her own mind.
6. Self-mutilation - cutting, burning, and even attempted suicide.
7. Omitted so as not to offend.
8. Abortion. And subsequent infertility. But the two are not linked in the story.
9. Parenting w/o a father. The adult character pressed a college classmate to make a baby with her with the thoughtlessness and self-centeredness of a teenager.
10. Gluttony - Her weight and her obsession with television.
11. Verbal abuse - The hatred that spewed from this character was inconceivable to me.
12. Self-centered parenting - Her mother allows her to smoke in the 8th grade, she has a mouth like a sailor and mom doesn't seem to care, her father takes off, and her mom sleeps with everything in sight completely ignoring the fact that her daughter is in distress at 257 pounds.
I guess what I find most disturbing about this book is that if read by teenage girls, it may give validation to all the things mentioned above. And those things mentioned above are eactly what has gone wrong with the morality of society. Whether anyone believes I'm closed minded or not, there is not one thing mentioned above that has benefitted society today in any single way. I'm sorry I wasted my money. And most of my used books go to the library, but not this one.
Summary of She's Come Undone (Oprah's Book Club)
In this extraordinary coming-of-age odyssey, Wally Lamb invites us to hitch a wild ride on a journey of love, pain, and renewal with the most heartbreakingly comical heroine to come along in years.Meet Dolores Price. She's 13, wise-mouthed but wounded, having bid her childhood goodbye. Stranded in front of her bedroom TV, she spends the next few years nourishing herself with the Mallomars, potato chips, and Pepsi her anxious mother supplies. When she finally orbits into young womanhood at 257 pounds, Dolores is no stronger and life is no kinder. But this time she's determined to rise to the occasion and give herself one more chance before she really goes under.
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 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.
Contemporary Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Engineering
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Medicine
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Contemporary Books
Friends and Loversby Eric Jerome Dickey
Dutton Adult; Published: 1997-11-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $160.05
The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guideby Douglas Adams
Wings; Published: 1996-01-17; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $6.99
Price in other shops:
Brown bear, Brown bear, what do you see?by Bill Martin
Seedlings; Published: 1987; Unknown Binding; Book
Phantomby Susan Kay
Media Creations Inc; Published: 2005-11-24; Paperback; Book
Best price: $15.38
Price in other shops:
Lonesome Dove : A Novelby Larry McMurtry
Simon & Schuster; Published: 2000-10-17; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.45
Price in other shops:
Waiting in Vainby Colin Channer
One World/Ballantine; Published: 1999-07-06; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.90
Price in other shops:
Redeeming Loveby Francine Rivers
Multnomah Books; Published: 1997-07-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.92
Price in other shops:
Seabiscuit: An American Legendby Laura Hillenbrand
Published: 2007-05; Unknown Binding; Book
Best price: $29.99
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkabanby J. K. Rowling
Raincoast Book Dist Ltd; Published: 2000; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $79.95
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fireby J. K. Rowling
Raincoast Books; Published: 2000; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $15.00
Similar Books and other products
Where the Heart Is (Oprah's Book Club)by Billie Letts
Grand Central Publishing; Published: 1998-06-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.13
Price in other shops:
Here on Earthby Alice Hoffman, Alice Hoffman
Berkley Trade; Published: 1998-03-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.75
Price in other shops:
A Million Little Piecesby James Frey
Anchor; Published: 2005-09-22; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.00
Price in other shops:
While I Was Goneby SUE MILLER
Published: 1999-01-31; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $19.79
Price in other shops:
Couldn't Keep It to Myself: Wally Lamb and the Women of York Correctional Institution (Testimonies from our Imprisoned Sisters)by Wally Lamb
Harper Perennial; Published: 2004-02; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.00
Price in other shops:
The Deep End of the Ocean (Oprah's Book Club)by Jacquelyn Mitchard
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 1999-10-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.90
Price in other shops:
A Virtuous Woman (Oprah's Book Club)by Kaye Gibbons
Vintage; Published: 1997-11-05; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.01
Price in other shops:
Drowning Ruth: A Novel (Oprah's Book Club)by Christina Schwarz
Ballantine Books; Published: 2001-07-31; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.99
Price in other shops:
Black and Blue (Oprah's Book Club)by Anna Quindlen
Delta; Published: 2000-02-08; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.98
Price in other shops:
I Know This Much Is True: A Novel (P.S.)by Wally Lamb
Harper Perennial; Published: 2008-04-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.55
Price in other shops: