She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb

At first I had a lot of mixed feelings about this book. In fact, I think that by the end of the novel I was more unsure of what I felt about it than I initially was in the beginning. But after letting it set in for a few days, I decided that I really did enjoy it as a whole. This book, quite frankly, is a giant roller coaster for the main character, that has way more 100 foot, 180 degree drops than slow yet sure trudges upward.

The main character, Dolores, is born in the 60's, her parents are messed up and she also hates her grandmother. As she gets older, kids make fun of her for no apparent reason, her parents drag her through a real tough time, and a man does something not-so-nice against her will. Slowly she begins to search out comfort in food, which quickly becomes apparent on her body. The back of the book says:

"When she finally orbits into young womanhood at 257 pounds, Dolores is no stronger and life is no kinder."

This sort of leads you to believe that this book is all about a young woman who is over weight and dealing with the trials it comes with. In reality, this is only one smallish portion of the book. The rest goes on to cover a rather huge chunk of her life where things "get better" in about 2 second intervals due to both Dolore's ignorance and a few things beyond her control. But I mostly belive she puts a lot of the things she goes through on herself. That is, only once she's out of her teens does she seem to refuse any responsibility for herself and claim the "woe is me" title.

Something that really irked me about this novel was the fact that everyone and their mom seemed to have a personal vendetta against overweight people. Now, I see this happening a lot with younger children, especially in elementary and middle schools (as the saying goes, kids can be cruel), but not really beyond that. By late high school I think more people choose not to even mention the fact that someone is overweight, much less look at them with disgust. Two-hundred and and fifty-seven pounds is big for someone who is 5'6", but not exactly that uncommon. Maybe it was in the 60's, I don't know. Or maybe because I've never weighed that much, I don't know. I could be the ignorant fool. But in any case, I felt that the discrimination was a little much, just about to the point of being unrealistic.

Besides those minor discrepencies, I did enjoy this book. It took me about a week and a half to read the 464 pages, but I had fun with it. Well, not so much fun (as it could be very depressing), but I was thoroughly engaged throughout its entirety. Though I couldn't really relate to the character, I did like watching her crazy (and there is some weird stuff in this book) life unfold, as well as see her self-growth. There was a lot of humor I enjoyed as well. While Dolores can be a brat and down right bitchy at times, it's also amusing. Her early snarkiness also allows us to see her in a more refreshing light as she gets older and has unconciously changed.

I would recommend this book to anyone who is looking for an intensely deep coming of age story. It definitely pulls you into a lot different heavy emotions.

If on the other hand you want something more fresh, fun, and fast, I'd say head in another direction. Or just wait for my next post.