Wally Lamb

Meet Dolores Price. She's thirteen, wise-mouthed but wounded. Beached like a whale in front of her bedroom TV, she spends the next few years nourishing herself with the chocolate, crisps and Pepsi her anxious mother supplies. When she finally rolls 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 really going belly up. In his extraordinary coming-of-age odyssey, Wally Lamb invites us to hitch an incredible ride on a journey of love, pain, and renewal with the most heartbreakingly comical heroine to come along in years. At once a fragile girl and a hard-edged cynic, so tough to love yet so inimitably loveable, Dolores is as poignantly real as our own imperfections.

She's Come Undone

She's Come Undone (Oprah's Book Club)

I considered capitalizing on my heart murmur-going outside and galloping around the dormitory until my heart burst.

A buoyancy passed over me so completely, I half suspected a breeze might blow me skimming along the edge of the dead grass.

You won’t get it unless you’re an expert in self-destruction

Hannah

2018:
This book- I love she's come undone is genuinely the best book I think I will ever read. I read it for the first time when I was 14 and I loved it, Dolores's character really stuck with me and something about her just felt really real compared to a lot of the girls in the other books I was reading at the time. Dolores isn't really someone I was aspiring to be but someone who just was, she was like other girls and watching her prevail through it all with the cards she was dealt and the world working against her constantly but seeing her still grow and work on herself until she became the person she was meant to be. Dolores is just really real she wants to be herself authentically but at the same time wants and needs to be like others even though she isn't. Seeing the odyssey of her life in this novel with all the highs and lows and her prevailing and finding people who are anchors in her life and her realizing she deserves the stability in her life and having to learn there are people who aren't awful and people that will stay and love her for the confusing perfect sort of mess she is. I could talk and write about all the details of this book forever but just read it - I'm not doing it justice here but you won't regret giving it a read. I've read it sooooo many times now and I get something new out of it every time!

2023: I am constantly coming back to this book and re reading whenever I can but I never get tired of it, I recently watched a video where Wally Lamb talks about the book and ugh would also recommend that I just love this so much

Allison Kalvaitis 

cedar winslow

i had no idea that wally lamb was a man until after i finished the book. i would never have guessed because he beautifully and tragically captured what it means to be a woman in dolores price. i was hanging on every word and felt like dolores was my friend, nice job wally

Elise Harris

The main character of this book is probably the strangest and most interesting person you will ever read about. Although this story is written by a man you would never know it by how well he can tell a scorned, and tortured woman's stories in such a poetic way. Although this is not a book for the faint of heart due to its sad stories and often gruesome nature as well as the main characters somewhat conflicted mental state, it is interesting to see how even in pain one can overcome. This book covers so many real life issues that it's almost shocking it can all fit in a book; abuse, marriage, lose, affairs, domestic violence, sexual assault, suicide, homosexuality.. just to try and name a few. As it was my favorite quote from the book and can easily sum up what I got most from this book, "But I think this; whatever prices I've paid, whatever sorrows I shoulder, well, I have blessings too."

Amy Maddess

This book reminds me of so many that I read growing up, steeped in anguish that looks like growth. I absolutely loved it for the simple fact that it took me back to a time that I had forgot existed. If it wasn't for this book being chosen as a buddy read, it could have easily sat untouched on my shelf for another ten years. If you are looking for a sign to pick up that book that you bought at a yard sale in 2007, THIS IS IT.

Corey White

I read this book a long time ago. I was thinking about it recently and all I remember is feeling trauma and triggers. I didn’t have words for it then, I probably was too young to be reading the book without someone older to discuss it with.

Erin Noel

Wally Lamb writes such a wonderfully complex dark character--Delores Price is like no one I've ever met before, but I woman I now know intimately. The symbolism of the whale was also so beautiful and moving--a wonderful story!

Corrie White 

This book needs a reread as I read it in grade 10 in high school. Recommended to me by a teacher and I absolutely enjoyed it.

Catherine Boys

I gave it three stars because the first half of the book was really entertaining and had great momentum, but then took a sharp turn for the worse in the second half. I was hooked early, but disappointed by the end. I felt that her character changed in a bad way which made the book far less enjoyable. And Lamb seriously goes overkill on the "tragic female events" to drive the plot. Daddy issues, rape, abortion, abusive relationships, dead parents...really, just too much. I of course understand that people do experience these things, but I think that an over reliance on them as plot devices and character development weaken the narrative.

Chelsea White

I had a hard time getting into this book, although I can appreciate how good it is. For me it was just an arduous read that took to long to get anywhere. Maybe I'll read it again once I've had some time away from it, but for now I'm letting it be.

Caitlin Berger

You know. Every so often, a book comes along that truly has no faults. From the first page to the last, the book is entirely perfect. I think of this novel as a whole, as a single 'being', if you will, of story-telling. There weren't good parts and bad parts, there were just good parts. The story-telling is absolutely fantastic, spot-on. Dolores will grow on you, as will other characters. Some characters, you will hate, with good reason. The way Wally Lamb constructed this woman's life is just extremely skilled and flawless. You feel like Dolores is talking to you, not talking through a narrator to you, or through an author. The story itself can be sad at times, but it is honest and many people can relate to it. I really enjoyed reading this novel and being captured by Dolores's spirit and personality. She may go through a lot but by the end of the book, you know she's still alive and fighting, as we should all be.

She's Come Undone

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