She's Come Undone (Oprah's Book Club) Mass Market Paperback – Unabridged, June 1, 1998

I love Wally Lamb's books so when I saw I could get this one on the Kindle for under three dollars I jumped at it - and I am very happy I did. His fiction is brutally honest - no fairy tales here. His character studies are profound. Based on the introduction (this is an anniversary edition), his novels take years to write and I can see why. I had no idea what the plot was about as I just bought it because Lamb wrote it. I don't want to give too much away but it tracks the story of a young girl through much of her life. Her family was dysfunctional but well intended. She was loved but the stresses in the family were almost unbearable. When the father finally left, the mother fell into mental illness for several years leaving Delores feeling abandoned with her elderly, Catholic grandmother (who was certainly very well-meaning but could not reach out to this anguished child). Her mother came back home but then began flirting with a married tenant. That tenant rapes Delores when she is 13 and her life is never the same again. To comfort her, the mother brings her food, food, food and lets her stay in her room and eat and watch TV all day. Her weight balloons and because of her size she cannot make friends and is mocked and humiliated at school. She becomes more angry and withdrawn and sullen. The mother and grandmother want her to go to college but she completely resists. However, the mother's tragic death in an accident inspires Delores to try college. It is a disaster. She faces complete isolation and humiliation from the other students. She runs away and is eventually hospitalized for several years after a suicide attempt. Then she moves to another town to pursue someone she thinks she loves. She marries him but he is a disaster. He talks her into an abortion - she was longing for a baby and this destroys her. When she finally realizes he is being unfaithful she leaves him and starts out on her own again. No fairy tale endings here - read it and see. I couldn't put it down and stayed up far too late last night finishing it.Lamb manages to fit in references to what was going on in the world over those years such as the Kennedy assassination, Nixon, the moon walk and the AIDs crisis (this was particularly touching). It shows you how it affects his characters.The character study of Delores is amazing. Lamb is an extraordinary writer. I highly recommend it.

"She's Come Undone" chronicles the life of the female MC, Deloris, from the age of four until she's in her thirties. Deloris has a difficult life. She witnesses the failure of her parents' marriage as her father cheats on her mother, eventually leaving her and starting a new life of his own. Her mother has a nervous breakdown and is sent to a mental hospital. During this time, Deloris moves in with her strict, Catholic grandmother and is bullied by the children in her new school. Deloris' mother creates artwork while in the mental hospital and sends a painting to Deloris, who at first is ashamed of it and hides it, only later to love it. Deloris' mother completes her treatment at the mental hospital and returns home. She gets a job at a toll booth and begins dating. Deloris befriends people in the neighborhood, including Roberta, the tattoo artist across the street, much to her grandmother's dismay. She also befriends Jack, a man living upstairs with his wife. Jack and Deloris' mother begin to have an affair. He also takes advantage of Deloris when she turns thirteen and is in the eight grade. He rapes her. A week later, his wife Rita miscarries their baby. Deloris blames herself, thinking she led Jack on and God punished their dirty deed by killing the unborn child. Deloris confesses what happened to Roberta and Roberta tells Deloris' mother. Jack moves away and this is the beginning of Deloris' deep depression. She begins gaining weight, all the way up to 257lbs. Deloris's mother wants her to attend college, but she's adamant about not going. Unfortunately, her mother is killed and Deloris makes it her goal to attend college in memory of her mother.While in college, Deloris experiences a sexual relationship with another female, causing her to question her sexuality. She also steals her roommates letters from her boyfriend and longs for the boyfriend to be her boyfriend. A guy her roommate is sleeping with ends up assaulting Deloris at a part. Afterwards, Deloris freaks out and leaves town. She attempts suicide by drowning in a place where whales have mysteriously began beaching themselves, but her mother's friend, whom she had called and spoken oddly to before she went into the ocean, sent help. For the next seven years her mother's friend pays for Deloris to live at a mental health facility.During her stay at the mental hospital, Deloris learns how to stop overeating. She visualizes the food with mold on it. She eventually slims down to around 130-something lbs. While she's in treatment, she begins working at a photo developing store and receives a roll of film with pictures of Dante, her roommate's boyfriend she once lusted over. Deloris researches until she finds where Dante lives. She abruptly stops her treatment and moves into the same apartment complex as Dante.Dante and Deloris strike up a friendship and she becomes pregnant, all while not revealing she secretly knows him and once sneaked his letters and pictures form his ex girlfriend. Dante is not the same man as he was in the letters. He once believed in God and wanted to be a minister, now he doesn't. He once seemed like a loving man, now he gets angry when he finds out Deloris is pregnant and pressure her into an abortion. Deloris has the abortion because she's so scared he will leave her. They later get married and she finds out that he's secretly had an affair with one of his high school students.Deloris end up living back at her grandmother's house after her death. She and Dante have divorced. She begins taking care of Roberta, gets a job, and goes back to college. During this time, she meets a man and falls in love, but doesn't believe in happily ever after. Instead, she asks him to help her conceive a child and he agrees, but they fail again and again. They two eventually marry and try in vetro. The book finishes without explaining if the two become pregnant.What I loved about the book: the somber, sad tone continued throughout the book. This book was a period piece, set back in the seventies, so controversial subject matter such as racism, homosexuality, abortion, drugs, etc etc was touched on and in such a graceful manner. I loved that Deloris got her maybe happily ever after. We're not sure, since the baby wasn't conceived yet, but the ending with her sighting the whale was spectacular and symbolic.What I didn't love: when she left before completing treatment at the mental health facility. I worried about this because I don't want people thinking it's okay to leave and not complete treatment. I DO like that you continued to let her character mess up, because that showed she made decisions that only someone who hadn't completed treatment would make. Still, I hope people know that completing treatment is best and not to try to "fix yourself" without the help of others.All in all, this book was wonderful. The best in angst.

She's Come Undone is a touching and powerful story that will stick with you long after you finish reading. It's a book about life's ups and downs, and how we can find strength in the face of adversity. If you're looking for a heartfelt read that will make you laugh, cry, and think, then this book for you.

I bought it as an impulse purchase and I am so glad I did. It sat for 2months on my table and I finally picked it up 2days back (already finished). You can really empathize with the character and all the supporting characters are so memorable.This again proves that you should never judge a book and a person by their exterior (cover/clothes/body). Everyone is fighting their own battle. The protagonist's battle with binge- eating, depression, marriage is so relatable. And you will be so shocked how a man could so convincingly write for a woman character. You must read if you are a bibliophile but if u r a first timer u vl b shook.PS: Got a used book in perfect condition!

Dolores - what can I say? I love her! There is a moment in the book where her sarcasm comes out and you just know that the real Dolores is BACK!!! Familiar themes to This Much I Know To Be True, but approached differently and with a female protagonist who is brassy and brilliant but who hides her light, and doesn't realise how amazing she is.

Dolores Price is an amazing character. Unbelievable that she was created by a man, when she is so flawless, consistent and complete in being who she is.Not that who she is is always a particularly nice person, indeed, much of this long novel is spent watching her bumble through life like one big car crash. She is self-delusional, selfish, mean, but never unreadable.Lamb's great achievement in this book is making such a deeply flawed character sympathetic. More, by the end of it's 465 pages I genuinely cared about Dolores as I would a real person.She's Come Undone follows Dolores from early childhood as her father leaves her with her mentally ill mother, through college, up to her middle age.She experiences the worst that life can throw at her, dealing with obesity, insanity, close friends dying from AIDS, adultry, but fills her with such life and generosity of spirit that at no point does it come across as heavy handed or mawkish. Lamb never plays for the easy tears or attempts to pull on your heart strings so as a reader you never feel manipulated.For a novel that is about the search for love it is unsentimental and restrained.There is a real sense of control to his writing; you feel as if you are in safe hands from the first page.He has a knack of dropping important information on you without you realising. It is several pages into one stage of her life before he casually places her weight into the middle of a page and it made me stop dead and reassess all that came before it. Really, really clever writing.And She's Come Undone is blessed with an ending so powerful it left me breathless and tearful. I hesitate to use the term masterpiece, but...

Wally Lamb a toujours le mot juste; la réplique est si juste que le lecteur est comme aspiré dans une réalité virtuelle proche de la confession. Le style est étonnant; on ne le sent pas écrire mais se dérouler sous ses yeux comme un film. A aucun moment on ne se rend compte que Lamb a cherché ses mots, il les a tout simplement capturés sous le vif. Un livre "in vivo" à lire ou plutôt à vivre.