Wally Lamb: She's Come Undone
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JamieB
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I liked it but I remember thinking Wally Lamb didn't really understand overweight and obese body types because her weight didn't seem to match some of the things he put in the book (car tilting to the side, only being able to wear sweat pants, etc).
It's been years since I've read it, though, so I could just be remembering it wrong.
It's been years since I've read it, though, so I could just be remembering it wrong.
Yes, read it again. NOW.
Wally Lamb is a wonderful, wonderful writer and I'd kill to be able to write half as well.
Wally Lamb is a wonderful, wonderful writer and I'd kill to be able to write half as well.
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Wally Lamb is a great writer, but I found the whole book ridiculous (sorry to everyone who loved it).
It hit on every stereotype about fat people that's out there, while cloaking it under a guise of being sympathetic. While reading it, I constantly felt like saying, "Newsflash, Wally. Being fat doesn't end your life. It doesn't make you a basket case. It doesn't automatically mean you lack self-control. It doesn't mean you're unable to live or find cute clothes or ride in a car without making it tilt! It doesn't mean you lack a spine."
I grew up in a fat family, and guess what? Being fat doesn't mean your life is over. Plenty of people manage to be fat and happy at the same time.
The book was so melodramatic and patronizing that I felt like vomiting after I read it.
Not that I have strong opinions about it or anything.
It hit on every stereotype about fat people that's out there, while cloaking it under a guise of being sympathetic. While reading it, I constantly felt like saying, "Newsflash, Wally. Being fat doesn't end your life. It doesn't make you a basket case. It doesn't automatically mean you lack self-control. It doesn't mean you're unable to live or find cute clothes or ride in a car without making it tilt! It doesn't mean you lack a spine."
I grew up in a fat family, and guess what? Being fat doesn't mean your life is over. Plenty of people manage to be fat and happy at the same time.
The book was so melodramatic and patronizing that I felt like vomiting after I read it.
Not that I have strong opinions about it or anything.
I really don't think by creating that character he was meaning that all overweight people were like her. It was one character in a book, thats all.
I just didn't find his portrayal of her weight realistic. She was somewhere between 200 and 230lbs in the book and he portrayed her as one step away from Gilbert Grape's mother.
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ColoradoMom
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I think it was about self-image, not specifically what the others felt about or saw in her. She was the one with the problem due to the things that happened in her past.
I loved this book when I read it and I found her journey amazing and inspiring.
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nah
I'm not denying that Mr. Lamb can turn a phrase, and though to me he didn't outdo Arthur Golden in writing from a woman's POV, he still did alright, and I understand that it's a popular book and many people found it a pleaure to read, but....
I read this a few years ago and could barely make it all the way through. Digging through all of the cheesy cheesiness, logical gaps, and stock characterization was hard enough, but then I couldn't stand the MC or that pervy idiot she married. I felt like the portrayal of her mental breakdown/hospitilization and weight gain/weight loss were silly and contrived. And that description of how she fell in love with Dante b/c she saw a picture of him sitting naked on the bed (wtf?)...and the fight over the big TV (ok, ok, tv is bad, I get it)... and what was up with Dante the womanizer suddenly giving up his bachelor ways and settling down with Delores? There was no believeable driving force behind his actions except that the writer forced him to do it.
Anybody else feel this way, or do I just need to go back to reading Anne of Green Gables or what?
I'm not denying that Mr. Lamb can turn a phrase, and though to me he didn't outdo Arthur Golden in writing from a woman's POV, he still did alright, and I understand that it's a popular book and many people found it a pleaure to read, but....
I read this a few years ago and could barely make it all the way through. Digging through all of the cheesy cheesiness, logical gaps, and stock characterization was hard enough, but then I couldn't stand the MC or that pervy idiot she married. I felt like the portrayal of her mental breakdown/hospitilization and weight gain/weight loss were silly and contrived. And that description of how she fell in love with Dante b/c she saw a picture of him sitting naked on the bed (wtf?)...and the fight over the big TV (ok, ok, tv is bad, I get it)... and what was up with Dante the womanizer suddenly giving up his bachelor ways and settling down with Delores? There was no believeable driving force behind his actions except that the writer forced him to do it.
Anybody else feel this way, or do I just need to go back to reading Anne of Green Gables or what?
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So.... You didn't like the book?
Oh, woops! I totally meant that I LOVED it!
No, I didn't like that one book in particular, but haven't crossed Wally Lamb off my list of authors to read just yet...
I read this years ago and I remember enjoying it. I agree with others who have said that I don't think the MC was spineless/mentally ill/had no self control because she was fat, I got the impression that she was fat because she was raped and the psychological trauma of this caused her to binge eat and get fat, and then she used this as a way of 'protecting' herself.
I do agree though that the degree of her obesity and the results of it (cars tilting) were probably unrealistic.
I do agree though that the degree of her obesity and the results of it (cars tilting) were probably unrealistic.
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I loved this book as well. I was totally depressed the whole way through and even at the end, yet walked away feeling…inspired?? I don’t quite know how Lamb did it, but I aspire to accomplish something like that in my own writing one day. The MC was like the anti-role model –if that makes sense.